Someone Shattered the Mirror Darkly
by Chet-the-predalien
Summary: He's not a cuddly La Push Shape Shifter. He's not good boyfriend material. He's a werewolf, a monster, and all he can offer her is ugly death. Title changed again.
1. Start

You guys know the drill. This is Stephanie Meyer's world, I'm just…ah…toying with it.

* * *

Leah shrank down into her seat as Count Dracula, Voivode of Wallach and King of the Vampires glared down at her with eyes black as night, his withered white skin and shiny silver hair a far cry from the dashing, ruggedly handsome playboy many modern fictions portrayed him as. No, this monstrosity was ancient and it showed in his stooped posture and twisted limbs, his elongated fingers and sharp claw-like nails. Yet Leah knew her vampire lore well, and she knew that all it took was fresh blood to revitalize the King Vampire, she lowered her head and turned slightly in an attempt to shield her neck from Dracula, but never took her eyes off the ancient evil.

Outside his castle walls, somewhere in the dark, dead twisted forest that surrounded Castle Dracula, a wolf howled, joined by it's pack mates. The howling of a wolf should not have frightened Leah Clearwater for many reasons ranging from the spiritual to the practical, but somehow, knowing the connection this monstrosity had with her four legged 'cousins the sound carried menace. Dracula grinned at his guest, his captive, his victim, then tilted back his head and laughed, spreading his arms wide as if to embrace the sound itself.

"Listen to them!" The ancient vampire exclaimed, exulting as though in triumph. "The Children of the Night!" He chuckled. His head lowered and his gaze once more fell upon his helpless captive, his mouth twisting into an arrogant smirk. He gestured with his clawed hand. "What sweet music they make." He offered, almost in a soothing tone, but beneath his placating voice there was an undercurrent of menace that spoke volumes.

'_You are mine.'_ The mightiest of all Cold Ones was telling his captive with his tone of voice alone. '_You are helpless and you will never escape. Your life is mine to end, and after you are dead your corpse will serve me until I have no further use for it. This is the truth of things, for it is my way, and my way is the only way for my power is greater than yours.'_

Outside of his castle, Dracula's wolves howled as if to drive home their master's message. Quill elbowed Embry in the ribs and then gestured to Leah, grinning at her as Dracula gloated.

"Music?" Keanu Reeves demanded, sneering like a petulant child. His English accent as shitty as his constantly changing wig would be latter in the film. "Those animals?"

Beside her, Paul laughed as he finally took notice of her wide eyed expression. The wonder and fear in her gaze as she regarded Gary Oldman's portrayal of the mighty King Vampire. Her eyes never leaving the screen, she reached out with one hand, grabbed Paul by the collar of his shirt, and then tossed him to the floor. The other members of The Pack guffawed at Paul's sudden displacement, and he glared up at her. Leah didn't care.

This had always been her favorite part of Bram Stoker's Dracula, the opening scenes that took place in Prince Dracul's ancestral home of Transylvania. Before it was revealed that Dracula was really nothing more than a love sick puppy pining for a girl that looked like his long dead wife. A antihero to be sympathized with, in spite of all the pain and death and destruction he had caused in his centuries long reign of mortal terror. In this section of the film Dracula was a cruel, cunning, manipulative monster. A fearsome lord of the undead, the patriarch and progenitor of a family line of ferocious predators that had spread across the planet like a plague. A truly worthy adversary. In Leah's opinion Dracula was a foe that should be respected but never sympathized with.

And at least he didn't sparkle.

Like many horror film fans, Leah generally preferred the early portrayals by Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi as the very best Draculas. Leah generally went with Lugosi if asked to pick between the two for nothing more than nostalgia's sake. Gary Oldman however, brought a creepiness to the character, even in those latter scenes of him prancing around with Mina, that harkened back to the book in ways Lee and Lugosi never did.

"Looks like the big bad she-wolf is afraid of a cheesy dude in a cape with a widow's peek." Quill snorted.

Leah flipped him the bird but remained silent, not wanting to waste time telling him to go copulate with himself. They really had no comprehension or respect for true horror classics. Leah guessed that being a werewolf could do that to people.

"I think she has the hots for him." Her younger brother taunted. "She's always had a thing for older guys."

Leah furrowed her brow and tried to concentrate on the movie. The boys would shut up once Dracula's brides, bare breasted and snarling, came out of the walls to start dry humping and chewing on Keanu Reeves' poor attempt at playing Jonathon Harker. The other members of The Pack began to talk animatedly. Leah's grimaced at the noise, turned to her 'brothers' and was about to start swearing up at storm when an ear piercing scream of pain and horror split the night from beneath Jacob Black's house. It was a desperate, agonized wail of torment that silenced every single one of them. Even Jacob, who had heard the sound three times a month for ten years froze at the noise.

The screaming continued for a good ten seconds before finally stopping. It was without doubt the most terrifying thing The Pack had ever heard. Terrifying, and yet at the same time heart wrenching, because each and every one of them knew the person making that sound. Many of them resented him, insulted him, but they all knew him. He was a human being, they had grown up with him. Played with him as children. He even went to the same school they did, and now he was suffering a torment none of them could even imagine.

They sat in Jacob's living room, rigid and alert, and although none of them would admit it, frightened. Paul's looked up at Jacob, who was sitting in a recliner right next to him.

"Was that it?" He asked.

Jacob winced and shook his head.

"No. It gets worse."

Then the thing in the basement howled. The entire house shook, doors and windows rattling as the thing made it's presence known to the world outside. _'I am here at last, free. Make peace with whatever gods you worship. I am here and I hunger.' _It was a voice they had heard pale imitations of in movies and on TV for years. And when they had finally changed and become wolves themselves? They had laughed at all that bullshit hokum about silver bullets and full moons. Bites and curses and pentagrams and gypsies. Hollywood tripe.

No one laughed now.

Their own howls were like sirens in the night, their growls like thunder cracking, but none of them had ever made noises like the ones coming from the basement. Leah honestly sounded thought like some kind of primeval dinosaur. They were strong and swift and even beautiful in their wolf forms. The werewolf movies became laughable, and then outright offensive to some of the Pack Members in their portrayal of werewolves.

They weren't monsters, they were just people, people who had superpowers but people still. Even Leah, who hated being a werewolf, had to roll her eyes at mentions of the full moon and silver bullets among tribe members who knew about the power, even if it was in jest. Still, as the silver light of the full moon streamed in from window and the monster beneath their feet raged, these facts were little comfort. They all felt like they were standing over a nuclear bomb, and in many ways they were. If it had ever broken out of it's containment somehow, they would be in for the fight of their lives. And unprepared as they were now, they would all likely perish in the battle.

A few moments latter Billy Black, Sherriff Charlie Swan and Sam Uley emerged from the basement. Billy had watched over the creature since it had first been placed under his care ten years ago, but his wheel chair had made it all the more difficult to be it's guardian. He had seen the transformation every night for ten years, his face was grave but determined. He held in his hands the only weapon capable of stopping it, a rifle loaded with silver bullets. Without silver, destroying the beast would be next to impossible. Sherriff Swan had been aware of the creature for as long, and it was even he himself who had placed it in Billy's care. He had managed to watch the transformation all the way through twice, counting tonight. He was ill and sad, but he shared his friend's steely determination. Sam was wide eyed and terrified, sweating. She was the first to run up to him, reaching out to steady him when he began to sway. He looked up at her, and she could smell that he had vomited.

"We don't stand a chance." He said simply. The implication was clear, whatever he had seen had terrified him to the point were he didn't believe The Pack could defeat it if it ever escaped.

Paul snorted and said something that was probably stupid behind her, but Leah didn't hear. She looked up, past Sam, to the darkened basement doorway.

"This is part of your duty now. To watch over him when the curse rises in his blood." Billy Black began, telling them all the things they had already been told before. "He entrusts his care and the care of those he might attack to us, he…they came to us looking for help." Billy looked at Charlie, who's eyes were full of shame. "If he escapes, it is you who must stop his inevitable rampage."

"And how exactly are we supposed to do that?" Jacob snapped irritably.

"You will learn how." Billy said with a shrug. "He will teach you. Learn from him when he is in his human form, and you will discover the secret to defeating him when he is a wolf."

Charlie turned and walked away, not wanting to hear the rest of the speech.

"No." Sam said finally. "No. I will not have that…that _thing _on my land or near my family." His eyes flicked up to Charlie, then back at Billy. "I don't care who his father is, kill him Billy."

Silence fell over the house. Charlie slurped at a beer he had brought over from his house as he watched The Alpha demand the creature be slain. As if to answer, the beast roared, a sound like the Earth herself cracking open. It sounded like a new era had begun, and for the first time in a long time Leah Clearwater knew what it felt like to be afraid of the monsters in the dark.

"He heard you. He has excellent hearing." Charlie snapped.

"He trusts us with his life, Sam." Billy demanded, eyes narrowing. "We all promised, even your father,-"

"I'm not my father! Kill it!" Sam screamed.

The thing roared and howled again, barking and snarling, it was like a series of bombs going off in the basement. Everyone present covered their ears at the renewed cries.

"It understands him?" Quill screamed over the noise, nearly in hysterics. "How can it understand him? It's a mindless animal!"

"No!" Charlie demanded, his eyes flashing with uncharacteristic anger. "He's not just an animal, and he's not just a person! Not anymore! Go and see!" He gestured. "Go and look!"

At his challenge, everyone exchanged uncomfortable looks. Paul sneered at the Chief.

"You think I'm afraid of that mongrel?" He demanded.

Charlie shrugged. The noise had finally died down.

"I'm not afraid!" Paul insisted. He crossed the room, stomping his feet as if trying to intimidate the creature in the basement. He turned to look at the others, face still a mask of pride and defiance. When his eyes fell on Sam, a hint of disgust crept into his face. He turned to Jacob then.

"I wouldn't." Was all he could say. He had been living with the thing for ten years, among The Pack he probably knew the most about it.

"You must." Billy said simply, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world and that they should know this by now. "You all must."

"Billy!" Sam huffed, about to make his argument again when Paul took the first step down into the basement. The thing howled at the sudden intrusion, a warning sound it would seem. Everyone whipped around to look at Paul, who had jumped about two feet away from the door.

"Yeah, you aren't afraid." Charlie said, popping the top off a second beer and then handing another to Billy. "Big bad wolf boy. You aren't scared of nothing, are ya?"

Leah looked around at the others. None of them were really to keen on facing down the creature even if it was locked in a silver cage. They had fought and killed vampires before, well, _a_ vampire. Killing leeches was what they were made for, what they were designed to do. In spite of their rather limited body count The Pack, even Leah who hadn't even taken part in the kill, had been fairly cocky about their new status as vampire slayers. This was different however, the creature that was currently locked up in Jacob's basement was in a whole different weight class. This was the real deep shit, and they had just been led up to their necks in it.

So Leah made her way to the doorway, pushing past Paul as she did so. She stood at the doorway, and again it howled. A threat, a warning that if it could it would kill her. Rip her apart and cast her about it's lair. She turned to take one good look at the others, the other Pack members staring at her like she had gone out of her skull with madness, Charlie Swan starred at her with a face she found impossible to read. Billy Black smiled reassuringly at her.

It wasn't that she wasn't scared of the creature, she was just as scared of it as the others, but she knew that she had to see it. Had to look it in it's eye. Had to know what she was up against.

And she would never let the others forget that she had gone down there when they wouldn't.

The steps creaked beneath her feet as she descended, but she couldn't hear them of the monster, which was now roaring in fury and defiance. The basement itself was actually well lit, it was the walkway down that was darkened. Over half of the basement was sealed off by a silver and iron cage. She was actually surprised at how thin the bars were, with her enhanced strength she could probably break through the cage in her human form, but cold iron, when properly treated, had all manner of use in combating the supernatural, and silver was anathema to the massive beast's race. It wasn't just allergic to it, silver was the creature's natural and mortal enemy. Any other metal and the creature would have smashed right through and gone on a merry rampage, but because the cage was silver all of it's massive strength was worthless in the face of the magical laws it had to obey. It's flesh would burn, it's fur would catch fire, it's rending claws and crushing teeth would snap and break off. And in the cage, she saw it for the first time.

It was…_him_. It was _not _him. It was monstrous, it was disgusting. It was thrilling. It was nothing she had expected, but everything she had feared. She was expecting it to be something like a spirit wolf, but there was nothing majestic or glorious about this…this _thing_. This perversion of a person she had known. It was it's own kind of monster. It was sitting in the middle of the large enclosure that served as it's home. It had never left this place as a wolf, only as a human, it had never been free. It's head was tossed back as it howled it's warning, and when it realized she was in the basement with it, it stopped to look at her. It bared teeth that made theirs look thin and feeble in comparison, and glared at her with it's massive ice yellow eyes tinged with the faintest flecks of green. And then, in the den, it roared at her! Lord, what a sound! Her bones rattled in her flesh as the noise reverberated, went through her. Made her quiver with fear.

When she looked into it's eyes for the first time, fully expecting them to be full of a wild, mindless fury. Everything she had been told about this creature had brought her to the conclusion that this thing was nothing more than a savage, soulless brute. There would be no intelligence to those eyes, just empty rage and hunger. What she saw when she looked into those eyes terrified -and enthralled- her even more. This thing was not a mindless killing machine. No, even more terrifying it was a highly intelligent killing machine. It was sentient, self aware, sapient. She could see in those eyes that were as soulful and expressive as any human's and yet at the same time so hideous and frightful that this creature was anything but mindless. And that's why it was so dangerous, because it was smart, and cunning, and it was stronger than they were and harder to kill and it knew it. It was the ultimate supernatural predator, and it hunted other predators for sport. Worst of all these things that she had discovered in the moments in which it had looked in her eyes and hers in its, _it knew her._ It remembered her from their interactions as a human being.

'_Dear God, is it really him in there? Somewhere?' _She wondered to herself as it barked and snarled and roared at her.

She bared her teeth and growled right back.

She wasn't shifted, she probably looked silly standing there as a human woman, snarling at a creature that was at the top of the magical food chain. Somehow though, it felt right. The thing, impossibly, fell quiet then. Instead it simply studied her, taking her in. It's eyes shifted, staring at her breasts, then lowered again, staring at her hips. It licked it's chops.

"You're a perv in any form, aren't you?" Leah managed to choke out.

It snarled, looked back up at her face. Eyes blazed, but they no longer held the naked fury at her presence.

"Yeah, that's right, my eyes are up here Dog Boy." Leah said, a little more forcefully this time.

It growled, but not so loud that it was deafening. Somehow that made it even more threatening. It's eyes lowered back to her chest, narrowing as they did so.

"Hey!" She shouted. The growled barked back at her but it's gaze shot back to her eyes.

"That's better. Good doggy." She wondered if it could sense how scared she was. Wondered if it could see through her false bravado. Wondered if it cared. It stood, standing taller than Sam when he was phased and approached the cage. Striding forward on two powerful legs. Leah stood her ground, knowing she had to. It stopped at the cage, sniffed the bars, it's snout crinkling in disgust at the hated metal, but then it's gaze caught hers again and if Leah was insane she would swear that it's gaze softened. It had yellow eyes, not gold like Bella's pet vampire, but hot yellow. Burning sickly as a dying sun. Those eyes held her, they would always hold her above all else.

She began to move, walking to her right, never taking her eyes off of the creature. It mirrored her movements, stalking along beside her. They moved as one, in sync, like they had always known each other. Like they belonged as one.

"You're not so bad. Like a big puppy." Leah admonished. It snorted, and looked at her with a face that told her they both knew it wasn't true.

She made her way to the far wall. A big comfortable rocking chair was set up beside a small side table. How many nights had old Billy Black sat at that table with his big hunting rifle, just watching it until morning came? She sat down in the chair, and the creature mirrored her once again, crouching low and staring intently at her, as if she was the most important thing in it's world. A stack of books sat on the table, and she picked one up, noting that it was covered in dust, just like the table and the chair were. She read the title.

"Dracula." She frowned. "What are the odds?" She looked up to see the big creature was staring intently at the book, and then it looked back up at her. It glanced back down at the book for a moment.

"You want me to read this to you?" She asked.

It looked at her with wide, pleading eyes that spoke volumes more than most people she met could say with words. Funny, when it looked at her that way it didn't look like a monster.

She opened the book and started.

It laid down then, ears twitching as it listened to her speak.

Maybe monsters weren't so bad after all.

* * *

It's _baaack_.


	2. Mall Rats and Brothers

And the two…become one.

* * *

He had had worse jobs in his nearly two decades on the Earth, Connor decided as he watched the mothers exercise near the small array of benches set up near the far end of the mall. The young security guard (Perhaps the youngest in the short history of Fork's over expensive indoor mall, now wasn't he just so special?) gazed down blandly from the second floor, leaning on the railing and slurping on his cold and bitter coffee. In the dead of winter in this frigid hole called a town, new moms seeking to burn off their baby weight flocked to the mall in droves, pushing their new bouncing balls of pooping, screaming pink flesh and chatting with each other as they made their rounds on the lower level, a few of them were attractive enough to catch his young eye, and as a hormonal teenager Connor was hard pressed not to allow his eyes to linger. To say young Connor Tailor was subdued and quiet was to say that the sky was blue or that the internet was full of weird porn. It was a simple fact that seemed inherent to his very nature, as much a part of him as his coal black hair or his annoying predisposition to blink rapidly for seconds at a time when uncomfortable. Much like the Chief he seemed to share many of his facial features with, Connor was quiet and normally placid.

His job at the mall also allowed him to keep tabs on his newest interest. Bella Swan had recently taken to accompanying her new boyfriend's sisters on their frequent expeditions to the mall. Connor had his suspicions that Charlie had secured Connor's position at the understaffed security force to put him in a position to spy on his daughter, and Connor could hardly blame the man for curiosity in his daughter's frequent interaction with a group of kids who normally spurned all human contact. Connor managed to pry his eyes off of the heaving bosoms below long enough to survey the clothing store opposite him. It was a rare occasion indeed to see the entire Cullen clan (save the good Doctor of course) out and about at the same time. Connor guessed they were beautiful in a thin, pale, nearly anemic kind of way. Connor would have tried to make a pass at the little bouncy one, Alice, if he was partial to hitting on older women. Older than him by about nine decades, though she looked good for her age if one could get over the ever present bags under her eyes. He wondered as he watched the group of vampire prance about the store, completely oblivious to the fact that they were being watched by a far superior predator, what doing a vampire chick would be like. Probably be like doing a corpse. He shuddered at the thought.

Then, like a searchlight sweeping through the crowds of people around him, Connor felt Edward's power try to force itself into his mind an attempt to read it. As quickly as he felt the vampire's consciousness seep into his brain, he threw up his counter measure.

_Food. Sex. Beer. Sex. That new movie with the guy from Firefly looks kind of cool. Boobs. Sex. I wonder why the Cullens are so damn pale. Tentacle hentai. _These thoughts and more like them bloomed in Connor's mind. Not exactly as good as Bella's mental shield, in fact they were more like mental decoys he could call upon when the need arose, but it was enough to have Edward retreat from his mind with all do haste.

'_Can't win, don't play Bitch.' _Connor thought smugly as he watched the tall blonde one, Rosalie, have a hissy fit at her brother/husband. Of all of the three Cullen brothers, Connor found Emmet to be the least disagreeable of the bunch. Not only because he was the most likely to acknowledge the presence of the lowly human dregs that the others regarded as beneath their notice but because he was the only one who seemed to posses a facial expression other than _"Help me, I have a massive cactus rammed up my ass." _Although Edward would sometimes sneer at people who came to close to either himself or Bella. Connor frowned as he watched Bella Swan wander around aimlessly, her only goal seemed to be in avoiding Alice lest she drag her into the changing room. Edward Cullen was never but two steps behind her, staring intently at the back of her head as though it would one day reveal the secrets of the universe to him if he glared at it long enough. Occasionally he would look up, his head darting around as he watched for any potential threat to Bella and then occasionally Bella would stop to pretend to look at some article of clothing, and then Edward would stop and sniff the back of her neck. His face screwing up into the closest thing Connor had ever seen to emotion. It was all kinds of creepy to anyone else who saw it, to Connor the sight downright _rankled_.

He slurped down the rest of his coffee to keep his teeth from grinding at the sight, his fingers drumming rhythmically on the polished wooden railing. Connor didn't know Bella real well, couldn't have seeing as how he had yet to work up the nerve to sit her down and talk to her, and her father was sure as hell not going to willingly let that particular skeleton out of the family closet. Still, the thought of the bloodsucker being so near her raised his hackles had set something deep in the recesses of his mind snarling in rage. The worst part of it was Connor knew for a certainty, deep in the deepest recesses of his heart, that Edward did not love Bella, that he merely regarded her as his possession, his property. The way he looked at her made Connor want to rip the effeminate prick's head off and ram it right up his tightly clinched-

Hungry like The Wolf hummed in his pocket, his cell phone going off. He wasn't supposed to be carrying his phone with him during his shift but if anyone gave him any shit he would just say it's his emergency phone and then take it from there. This job really wasn't that important to him anyway, not that he hated it, just that he didn't particularly have any special attachment to it. He had no intentions of making a career out of this. Pulling away from his surveillance of the Cullens and their new toy human, Connor turned and lumbered away. Connor was built a bit like a piece of construction equipment. Big and strong, graceless because he didn't need to be pretty while he was breaking your teeth, he was sheer brute force powered by a cunning intellect that had a predatory edge most other bruisers lacked. He was just a month younger than Bella, although his eyes made him look older, and he carried himself with the posture of an old soldier who had seen one to many battles. Seen one to many comrades die. His mother always said he had an old man's soul, even when Connor wondered if he had any soul to speak off, which was becoming less frequent as Connor grew out of his teenage years and became less and less prone to such childish outbursts of angst and self pity.

When he was sure he was far enough away from the vampires to escape their immediate notice he pulled out his cell phone and answered it.

"Speak dog." He rumbled in his gravely voice.

"Funny Dog Face, real funny." Seth Clearwater answered flatly. "Sam wants to know if you're coming over tonight."

"Do I have anywhere else to go? You guys are pretty much the beginning and end of my social circle. A sorry state of affairs." He replied. A withered old security guard named Davis who had to be at least a hundred glared daggers at him as he shuffled out of his path. Connor watched the old man out of the corner of his vision.

"Up yours Carrion Breath." Seth snapped.

"Anything else? I have to go back to desecrating your ancestral land and dishonoring the spirits of your ancestors." Connor snapped

"Yeah." Seth said smugly. "You're buying dinner Pale Face." Seth had picked up on Leah's habit of shooting racial slurs right back at him, and it never failed to make Connor grin stupidly that someone had finally worked up the nerve to start insulting him right back.

"You bastards." Connor grumbled. "What's on the menu?"

"Surprise us."

"A pile of my shit coming right up then." Connor ran through his mental list of cheap dinners he could provide for The Pack on his limited dime. "When should I drop by?"

"Seven. Don't be late."

"I never am."

"Uh huh."

"Leah there?" Connor finally asked.

"Yeah." Came the hesitant reply.

"What's she wearing? Is it sexy?"

Seth sputtered on the other end of line. Connor snickered, Leah had always been Seth's sore spot.

"How she doing though?" Connor asked seriously.

"Still a shrill harpy!" Quill shouted, loud enough for him to hear. Connor's mouth twitched.

"Do me a favor and punch that little snot in the head, would you?" He tried to pour fake humor in his voice.

"To late, Leah already did it for you. Only in the nads. Ouch." The sound of snuffling alerted Connor to someone behind him.

"Listen, Seth I got to cut you off. Duty calls. Take care of-" _Your sister. _"-the others." Connor didn't wait for his reply, flipping his phone closed and turning to see a tiny little thing sitting in a large cushy chair that made up one of the mall's many rest centers. Bella actually looked smaller close up than she did far away. And she was crying. Deep inside him a tiny ember threatened to spark a raging fire as his protective instincts went from _'Zero' _to _'Kill the Fucking Leech'_. Maybe he was just overreacting, but that was just what his instincts were telling him to do. Still, he managed to swallow his anger and resume his mask of stony detachment, only frowning slightly as he snapped his fingers near the side of her head, causing her to shoot him a wicked glare that naturally reminded him of his father, causing him to flinch internally if not physically.

"What're _you _crying about?" He demanded.

"Nothing. Leave me alone." She snapped at him. He suddenly had the feeling that the Cullen's were rubbing off on her, or maybe she was just naturally this bitchy, but something was obviously bothering her and he just couldn't leave it at that.

"Is it your boyfriend? He hurt you?" He asked, a little more gently this time even though his normally near infinite patience was already being worn down by the nasty look he was getting.

"Why? You want the job?" She spat, rolling her eyes. "Sorry, it's already taken. I'm sure Mike and Tyler well let you into the club, though."

"The 'tried and failed to get into your pants club'?" Connor snapped back. "Sorry, sweetheart, but the thought of doing the horizontal tango with you makes me ill to my stomach." And that was the truth.

Bella's jaw dropped, she was clearly not used to being talked to that way. Usually when she rebuked a guy he would slink off to lick his wounds.

"I'm just here to help you, seems to me like you need it whether you want to admit it to yourself or not, so what's your problem?" He said simply.

She looked him up and down, a mix of anger and curiosity in her eyes.

"Aren't you a little young to be mall security?" She sneered at him finally.

"Chief Swan got me the job." He said, looking deep into her eyes, trying to tell her the truth without actually having to _tell _her the truth. Hoping that the bond of their blood would be strong enough that she would sense who he was. "I owe him a lot."

"Chief Swan…is my father." Bella said, her eyes narrowing as she focused on Connor's gaze. "You…look a lot like him."

"I look like _my _father_._" Connor said quietly.

"Our dads must look alike then." Bella said with a shrug, looking down again.

"Yeah." Connor responded with a sigh. "Name's Connor. Connor Tailor, there's a junior on the end of that, usually cut it off though. Ole Connor Tailor Senior used to work with your dad on the force."

"Oh." Bella said, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I never heard Charlie talk about him…" Of course, she rarely listened when her father talked.

"You wouldn't, on account of the fact he's been dead about ten years now." Connor said simply.

"I'm sorry." Bella mumbled, shock registering on her face.

"You didn't kill him." Connor shrugged again. "Don't really remember that much about him…other than he used to beat the shit out of my mom."

Bella's eyes widened.

"Wanna grab a burger or something down by the food court?" He asked flatly.

"Oh I…" She mumbled, and Connor suddenly realized that she had been rapidly blinking non stop since he mentioned his father was dead. At least that shit was genetic though he had never noticed Chief Swan doing it. She glanced around for a few brief seconds. Her gaze finally fell on Edward, who was creeping around somewhere at the far side of the mall. The older man's eyes smoldered in his alabaster face like coals, which sounded scarier than it actually was. Mostly he just looked constipated, even when he was trying to be threatening. Especially when he was trying to be threatening in fact.

_Burger with Bella. Beer with Bella. Sex with Bella. Sex with Bella _and _Rosalie_. _At the same time._

Edward Cullen's head looked like it was about to explode into a ball of glitter and flame. He shook with barely contained rage. Connor kept up the constant barrage of mental decoys to keep the mind reader from realizing the truth about him. He would feel disgusted with himself latter.

Bella frowned a bit, something akin to anger flashed in her eyes.

"He doesn't own you." Connor said softly. "He really doesn't." With eyes that were

surprisingly expressive and soulful even though they were a dull harsh green that was distantly yellowed, he begged her. _'Don't give in to him. Please. Rebel, defy, but don't be his plaything anymore.'_

"Yeah. Okay." Bella's voice was laced with venom. "Let's go."

Edward's eyes narrowed with sheer unadulterated hatred at Connor as the burly young man led her to the food court. This one was going to have to _suffer_ before he ended his miserable human life. However, before the pair disappeared round the corner, Connor Tailor Junior whipped his head around to glare at Edward. Through the moronic noise, the idiotic perverted dribble that made up his primitive human mind, came a single crystal clear thought that carried with it a slightly canine edge in the intensity of it's pure righteous fury.

'_Back off, Thundercunt.'_

And then the two were gone leaving Edward angry, alone, and more than a little confused.

* * *

Admittedly thirty minutes was not a very long time to get to know someone, and Connor tried not to be the judgmental type. Really shouldn't be on account of his condition, but still some facts were so painfully obvious one couldn't help but draw certain conclusions from this kind of discussion with Bella Swan. Connor was sad to learn that the girl was out of her skull batty, madly in lust with Edward ' Your Privacy is Beneath Me' Cullen. Not love, lust. The little lady was obsessed with him, or rather, an idea of him. In the grand scheme of things he didn't know how trustworthy his friend-of-convenience Jacob Black was since he was obviously madly in love with Bella himself. And Jacob had been quick to paint the portrait of a blood mad monster only after Bella for her beauty but he had eyes in his head and a brain in his skull and picking up on the little things was something Connor had always had a knack for.

Connor didn't like Edward so far. He hadn't even met the vampire yet and already Connor could sense that the two of them were never really going to get along for a few reasons. Chief among them was the fact that from he could gather from eye witness testimony and his own surveillance was that Edward Cullen was an asshole. A giant, gaping asshole that Connor had not seen since that one time that Jacob had emailed him Goatse. Bella had yet to allow Connor get a word in edge wise, as she had been regaling him with tales of the Mighty Edward Cullen ever since the two of them had sat down to a lunch of delicious and nutritious fast food and soft drinks. Connor stared at her blankly as she excitedly told him of the time that she had _tripped _and Edward had _caught her. _Wow. Guy was a regular super hero.

'_Poor little girl. She's gone bonkers over this prick.'_

"Wow, you know, I really feel like I can open up with you." Bella chattered excitedly.

"Yeah." He grumbled. "Me too." He took another huge bite out of his cheeseburger and chewed noisily as she continued to prattle on. He eventually decided to cut in while she was taking a nibble of her Veggie Burger. "So. Why were you crying up there?" He asked.

"What?" She froze and began to blink rapidly again.

"You two get into a fight or something?" Connor washed down a fry with a greedy slurp of his coke. "He uh…ask you to do something that made you feel….uncomfortable?"

"Oh no." She answered a little timidly. "I just…it was my fault really."

"Can I ask what happened?" Connor said, concerned. He had a feeling that it wasn't really her fault at all.

"I really shouldn't…" She was getting upset now, and that only distressed Connor more.

"Bella." Connor leaned in. "You can tell me anything. I'll…I'll always be there for you." He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

The two of them had never met before that day. Oh, Connor had studied her from afar, playing the part of watchful guardian, but he didn't know much about her other than the idealized version that the others had always gushed about. Still, there was a connection there, a bond, that went beyond the many miles that had separated them growing up. The same blood flowed through their veins and the two of them knew it on one level or another. Connor had been aware for ten years that he was the illegitimate son of Charlie Swan and Elaine Tailor, and that made Bella his sister. She was his flesh and blood and the idea of leaving her to Edward Cullen stuck in his craw.

If there was one good thing Connor Sr. had ever taught the child had never been his it was that you never, ever turned your back on your family. Sure the lesson had been unintentional, but it had been learned well. For her part Bella felt a pull towards Connor that wasn't romantic, nor lusty, but rather the powerful bond of family. Connor didn't see much in his older sister that he liked, but he loved her all the same. Kinda had to.

She was just really fricking annoying.

"Isabella." Connor said, firmly but softly. "Come on…"

"Bella!" Someone screeched as they charged up the steps of the food court.

Rosalie. The blonde vampire with a temper marched on the two of them, golden eyes locked on Connor with a stare that could burn a hole right through steel. Alice pranced along after her, eager to see Connor's oncoming destruction. He snorted, meeting her challenge by rising up and crossing his arms. Returning her glare with the kind of flat gaze that showed he was unimpressed with her I-wanna-kill-you-with-a-spoon stare.

"Damn, aren't the two of you chocolate for the eyes?" Connor drawled without a hint of lust in his voice before taking a deep drink of his coke. Alice giggled, both at Connor's intentionally cheesy pick up line and Rosalie's facial expression.

"Out of the way, Rent-A-Cop." The blonde vampire hissed in rage. "Bella's coming with us."

"Well, I think that Bella ought to have a say in where she goes and who she goes with." Connor retorted.

"Bella." Alice interrupted, leaning around the two. "Edward says he's real sorry about the whole thing. He wants to drive you home."

Bella's eyes lit up at the idea of being forgiven for whatever stupid ass transgression had ignited their little tiff.

"He can't come on down here and apologize himself? He's gotta send a fine young lady down here to apologize for him?" He addressed Alice, waggling his eyebrows as he did so, she stuck out her tongue at him playfully and he chuckled.

"Excuse me, _Jackass_." Rosalie stepped in between the smaller vampire and the horndog who was making passes at her, protective instincts immediately kicking in. "There's two of us."

"You aren't a lady." Connor said flatly.

Rosalie's nostrils flared. Her eye began to twitch rapidly, but Connor didn't pay her much mind. He instead peered over her shoulder at Alice, who was craning her neck to look him in the eye.

"Let's cut the shit and talk brass tax here, alrighty Half Pint?" He asked her.

"Fair enough." Alice nodded. "Gigantor." She finally added after a pause."

"This Edward guy sets this young lady half way across the mall crying, and then decides to send his two beautiful sisters to get her why? He to busy to come get her himself? That doesn't sound like a very committed boyfriend to me." He had to raise his voice over Rosalie's increasingly vocal objections.

"Another fair point Mr. Tailor." She nodded again.

"Call me Connor."

"No, I don't think I will." She stepped out from behind Rosalie, graceful as ever. "But neither is it your concern. You are not only a stranger, but your job neither requires you to nor entitles you to make this you business."

Connor snorted in contempt but turned to Bella.

"You sure you wanna go?" Connor asked. "This Edward doesn't sound like much of a man to me."

"More of a man than you!" Rosalie sneered. She continued on, but Connor didn't pay much attention to her. He was looking down at his sister.

"I…I think I should go." Bella answered meekly. "I don't want to make Edward upset." In that moment, she reminded him of his mother.

His mother, who had once been beaten so bad she almost lost an eye.

His mother, who now spent most of her time in a wheelchair.

Edward didn't hurt Bella physically, that was a fact. She wouldn't still be around if he had but he had a powerful hold on this girl. He might have been hundreds of years old for all Connor knew, and Bella hadn't even been alive for two decades.

But what could he do, forbid her from going where she wanted to go? He wasn't in any position to stop her. Some part of him just wanted to blurt out _"Bella, I'm your brother and I'm gonna do what's right by you!"_ But he couldn't. His father wouldn't take to kindly to that.

"You stay outta trouble then, Bella." He mumbled.

Rosalie shot him a satisfied smirk and then shoved him aside roughly to gather Bella.

"I'll try." She offered. She didn't sound to happy as she was led away, as though she couldn't make it upstairs herself.

Alice stayed behind a moment. She looked up at Connor, and then tugged on his sleeve.

"Look Gigantor. I know Bella's pretty and all but-"

"It's not what you think." Connor cut her off.

"Yeah?" Alice crossed her arms. "What is it then?"

He sighed sadly, looking down at her. Her eyes were such a ridiculously vibrant gold he had to wonder why people didn't pick her out as inhuman earlier.

"I was just trying to help. She…she reminds me of my mother." He said with a shrug.

"Yeah? How?"

Connor looked back up at Bella, and his eyes followed her gaze up to the second floor, where Edward Cullen stared intently down at her, flanked by his two brothers. His air of arrogance and superiority made Connor want to growl. More than anyone else, Edward reminded Connor of the man his mother had married. The man he had been named after. The man he hated more than anything else. He retreated deeper into the shade of the food court, silently conceiting a small victory to a vampire he had never met yet already identified as his hated enemy.

Connor vs. Edward.

Werewolf vs. Vampire.

The stakes were Bella's immortal soul.

Winner take all.

* * *

Just like Komodo versus Cobra or Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus…only one of them sparkles!


	3. Absolution and Waffles

This is the chapter that may make you hate Connor forever. You have been warned.

* * *

Connor's beat up lime green Fiesta puttered down the road towards his home. It was a fairly remote house, closer to La Push than Forks. La Push, so much of his life now revolved around that place. He even went to school on the reservation with Jacob and the rest of The Pack. The Tribal Council was well aware of his condition and agreed to let him attend school there to let at least a few members of The Pack keep an eye on him during the day time.

Even though he _only _transformed on nights of the full moon.

Connor muttered something that not even he quite caught under his breath and then shoved the last quarter of the burrito he had been eating into his mouth and chewed noisily. He had a headache, and a backache, and an ass ache for the matter. Every little ache and pain adding up into a patchwork quilt of misery. He belched loudly as he pulled up the driveway to his house. Pulling to a stop, he sat in the car for a moment, contemplating the peeling white paint and unkempt lawn. The inside of the house was reasonably clean by teenage boy standards, but from the outside it looked like a dump. He never had been much for yard work, not in this chill weather and his mother…well. His mother never left the house anyway.

Sighing, he opened the car door and hauled himself out. He stretched his limbs, wincing at the sick, liquid popping of his joints and then lumbered towards the door. Inside he detected trace amounts of some kind of alcohol and waffles, the scent of his mother's usual breakfast making him snort and sneeze before he wandered into the television room where his mother had stretched out on the couch. Only one foot hung lazily off the armrest.

Only one, because her other leg had been severed above the knee.

By the man who had had the gall to call himself her husband and his father.

"I found the maple syrup." She said with a hint of hollow pride in her voice.

"Uh huh." He nodded.

"And I only _one_ glass of wine with my breakfast." She curled in all her toes but her big one which seemed to point upward triumphantly for emphasis. Her good humor never failed to both lift his spirits and make him sick to his stomach.

"Good." He stepped fully into the room, looking down at his mother. Unable to hide a grimace as he took her in.

She was a woman who had turned forty years old long before her time. Alcohol and savage beatings had aged her quickly and toughened up her once soft pale skin. Her once strawberry blond hair was now graying and frazzled. Limp. She had one hand draped across her eyes even though the TV was going, and he could tell she was hung over. He plopped into his recliner, the one he had commandeered after _he_had died. Taking over Connor Senior's domain in a final insult to the long dead monster. The master of the house was long dead, and no one shed a tear for his passing, not when his heir was so much more…agreeable.

"Want me to put you into your chair?" He asked.

She muttered a no.

Connor grunted something in reply and turned to stare blankly at the T.V. for a while.

"Met Bella today." He said off handily.

His mother's entire body stiffened at the mention of his half sister's name. Slowly she pulled herself into a half sitting position and appraised him with her icy green eyes.

"And?" She asked.

"And what?"

"Was she…nice?" She asked awkwardly.

"She's a spoiled rotten little brat." Connor said with a lazy yawn. His mother laughed, not the bitter kind, like she used to laugh. It was a real, hearty laugh, as if she found it genuinely amusing.

"Thought so." She said at last, wiping tears from her eyes. "Charlie's precious little angel. Who can do no wrong." Bitterness crept into her voice. "A brat, woulda thunk it?"

"But…she's my sister." Connor said grudgingly. "And she's in trouble."

"This Cullen kid…he's that bad huh?" She asked all mirth now totally gone from her voice.

"I think he is." He nodded. Then he sighed, his voice trembling. "And…I don't know what to do."

"Stake him in the heart." She shrugged. Connor didn't laugh, simply starred down at his hands. His fingernails, imagining them as thick rending talons. Then she saw the depth of her son's anger and desperation, his sullen brow and twisted lips. His narrowed eyes and clenched hands. "Who don't you just…talk to her?"

'Just talk to her.' She made it sound so easy, as only a mother could. And Connor knew she was right, in the way only a mother could be right. But what sounded easy and what _was _easy was just as different as what was easy and what was right.

"Chief Swan-" He began.

"To hell with him!" His mother insisted. "He gave up the right to tell you what to do when he disowned you! You get bit and suddenly you're no longer his son? Bullshit! It's all his fault anyway! If not for him you wouldn't have been there that night! You wouldn't-"

"Mom!" He shouted. "Stop! Please just stop!" His entire body tensed. "Just…not tonight. _Please_ not tonight."

She was silent then, as she listened to her son's voice waver. She settled back into the couch then, blinking back tears.

"There's no one to blame but _him_." Connor whispered hoarsely.

"I know it." She admitted with a sigh. "But your father isn't exactly a saint either.

"I know it." He echoed his mother.

Silence fell over the room then. Uncomfortable and palpable.

"Tired?" He finally asked.

She nodded stiffly.

"Want me to put you-"

She held up a silencing hand and then moved to pull herself into the wheelchair at her foot. With uncanny agility and strength she managed to flop herself into the chair without even losing her breath. Connor hauled himself out of his own seat, taking his position behind her and wheeling her to her bedroom. He passed the kitchen, looking in to spy the half hidden bottle of wine that had been full when he had left his morning. He suppressed a sigh and then continued onward. When she was settled at her nightstand, where she would play video games on his lap top until he fixed her supper, he returned to the kitchen, staring down at the half empty bottle of wine. As though it had somehow seduced his mother and it, not she, was to blame.

He snatched it up and took a long swig, hating the taste of it. The alcohol making his lips pucker and his nostrils tingle sharply. It was room temperture and cheap and it wouldn't be enough to get him drunk or even buzzed but he figured if he didn't drink it she would. He slid into a chair, starring outside the kitchen window, thinking about his sister and his life and his mother and…everything. Three hollow knocks alerted him to a visitor at the front door. Connor reluctantly stood and trudged to the main hallway a distinctive floral smell mixed with the scent of freshly baked blueberry muffins identified her before he even reached the door.

"Emily." He said evenly as he swung the door open.

"Connor." Gone was the normal bubbly tilt in her voice when greeting him. Her tone held the distinctive strained timbre of cold awkwardness. Whatever else she had been planning to say died down in her throat leaving her standing there awkward and speechless.

"Muffins." He finally said with a half hearted gesture. _'Oh Crap, here we go. She's going to expect to be let in isn't she?' _He added mentally.

"Oh? Oh! Well I-I- brought them over for your mom." She babbled absent mindedly.

"Gee. Thanks." Connor croaked as he took the muffin basket, gazing down at it. She didn't move an inch from where she was standing. At length he finally relented. "You did not just come here to bring my mother-who you've met once, when you were eight- muffins."

"No." She shook her head.

"Come in." He said with a disheartened sigh, moving aside for her. Moving into the kitchen Connor all but tossed the muffin basket onto the counter, taking note of Emily disapproving glance at the half empty wine bottle on the table.

"So I heard-"

"Does Sam suspect anything?" Connor cut in, his voice hard edged like a rusty knife as his patience ran short.

"No." Emily said quietly. "But…but…"

"You feel just so awful about what happened. The knowledge is eating you up isn't it?" He guessed, breathing hard. "Knowing-_**knowing**_- that you betrayed the man who loves you more than anything else in the world in _that _way with _me _of all of God's forsaken creatures is just killing you inside isn't it?"

He looked away from Emily, unable to stand the sight of her in that moment.

"So you came here to do what exactly? Assuage your guilt or are you just here for another quickie?"

"No!" Emily insisted. "No Connor, it's not like that! I just-"

"Want to see if I'm feeling as guilty as you are?" Connor rumbled. "The answer is no, Emily. I don't feel bad about it. Not one damn tiny little bit." It was a lie of course, he felt terrible about it. Just for entirely different reasons. "We made our choices you and I. We _choose _to have a one night stand. We _choose_ to lie to Sam about it_. _We _choose_ you and me. Now we have to live with the those choices for the rest of our lives." Connor added

with a sigh.

Silence fell over the kitchen as Emily digested this with a few slow nods.

"Are you going to tell Sam?" Connor finally asked.

"No. He'd kill you, Connor." Emily wasn't just using a figure of speech. When it came to imprints the wolves were notoriously protective and jealous. It wouldn't be to far removed from the realm of possibility that Sam would literally try and kill Connor if he ever discovered he had porked his imprint.

Connor briefly entertained the idea that maybe he _deserved _to die for what he had done. As much as he resented Sam, he had crossed a line. He had taken Emily in Jacob Black's basement the night of a full moon. The Pack Alpha hadn't been home, taking in a late run with Jake and Paul. By the time Uley had returned home the stench of the werewolf had overpowered the scent of their love making and Emily had scrubbed herself raw with scalding hot water to get his scent off of her. Sam never suspected a thing, or maybe he did. Maybe he caught the slightest whiff of Connor's distinctive lycanthrope smell on his fiancee. Maybe he simply didn't want to admit it to himself. Connor didn't know or care. As for Emily…well…

Emily was already paying for it. With every fresh stab of shame in her gut she paid for her lapse in judgment. Sam was so afraid to touch her, to hold her, to make love with her for fear of hurting her again that she had felt cut off and lonely and more than slightly unattractive to him. And Connor…well. Connor had never even had a girlfriend. His condition made relationships with normal human girls too complicated, and he had never even given it a try. It was unfortunate, it was untidy…it was done with as far as Connor was concerned. He would have liked very much to forget the whole thing and move on and see as little of Emily as humanly possible. With her slinging her muffins around his house it was getting hard to sweep the incident under the rug. Connor was under no illusions that she was any more to blame than him…but it didn't mean he wanted to see her. Or talk to her, or have a heart to heart conversation with her. He wasn't a priest, he wasn't interesting in her confession and he could offer her no absolution. Especially not when he had been an equal partner in her sin.

"Emily go home to Sam. Make him dinner or muffins or whatever you do. Kiss him, hug him, give him a lap dance if it makes you feel any better. Just get away from me, forget about me. Don't come here again. There's nothing I can offer you." He looked down at the bottle, snatching it up and holding it out to her. "Except maybe a drink." Emily starred at the bottle as though he had just shoved a hunk of rotting meat in her direction. Without a word she turned and rushed away. _'And for the love of God don't spare a second thought to the woman he left for you. That may break that tiny little brain of yours.'_

* * *

"So Emily _literally _gave Sam a lap dance?" Connor asked Jacob the very next day as they bounced along in his Fiesta. They were heading towards the beach where they would meet up with the rest of The Pack "In front of God and everyone?"

"Right after you left. It was funny as _hell_." Jake gasped in between sobs of hysterical laughter. "He had no idea what was going on."

"Jesus." Connor said shaking his head. _'Leah…'_

Jacob quickly took notice of the fact that Connor wasn't giggling like a moron and commented on it.

"No. I just…I'm worried about Bella." Connor said flippantly. Like it was nothing. At the mention of the B word Jacob immediately sobered up. "She was…she was really upset yesterday."

Jacob's face immediately twisted in anger. He clenched one hand into a fist.

"Man if I had been there…" He growled.

"You would have what? Blinded the leech with the light reflected off your oily bare chest?" Connor asked. "No. There's nothing you could have done." He said with a defeated sigh.

Silence fell over the car. On the radio, the Spanish station that was inexplicably the only radio station the car could pick up began to play a rather inappropriately up beat music selection considering the mood.

"Maybe the two of you could talk the next time she comes over to visit The Pack." Jacob offered tentatively. "I could introduce you as the token white friend or something."

"Yeah?" Connor asked, his face and tone totally neutral.

Again, silence.

Save for the Mexican Hat Dance.

"That Edward's a real piece a work." Connor finally added.

"Oh tell me about it." Jacob groaned. "Even for a blood sucking leech he's creepy. I'm pretty sure he smells her hair when he thinks no one will notice."

"He does." Connor rumbled.

"What-really?" Jacob practically yelped.

"Yep. I watched them at the mall. Sniffing her like a dog. I had nightmares about him going through her underwear drawer all last night." Connor said with a shudder. "Was up till five o'clock in the morning."

"Geaayh!" Jacob exclaimed. "What does she _see _in that freak?"

"Maybe it's a vampire thing. You know, like Dracula could put the whammy on girls whose blood he was sucking to make them think having their blood sucked by a shape shifting corpse was sexy. Vampire mind screwing. They call it Dominate in the World of Darkness. Five dots and you can literally possess a person."

"He's dangerous." Jacob growled.

"He sparkles." Connor grunted. They were both silent as the two of them stewed in their mutual hatred for Edward Cullen. "Tell you what though, if anyone's good for her, it's you." He said with a small belch.

Jacob turned to stare at Connor, his gaze never left the road he navigated. He laid a gentle hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Thanks man. It means a lot to me-"

"Don't touch me while you're half naked, it makes me uncomfortable." Connor barked.

Jacob immediately pulled his hand back, looking away with a small cough.

* * *

And it was at this point that spell check decided to conk out on me. Enjoy it folks!


	4. Ice, Wind, Rage, and Pterodactyl Fights

I love me some Sam bashing.

* * *

Sam Uley exploded from beneath the water, taking in deep gulps of air and smoothing his hair out of his eyes. The Pack Leader trudged onto the beach, dripping wet. Emily was standing right at the shore, dutifully holding a towel out for him. He smiled at her, but hesitantly. Last night had…taken him off guard to say the least. In fact it was downright freaky and frankly more than a little embarrassing. Then he noticed that most of The Pack were looking up at Leah and Connor. The two were fighting.

Again.

Sam sighed, and walked right past Emily without a backward glance and approached the spectacle. The boys were sitting around the two of them like they were spectators at a boxing match…or an ancient Roman blood sport in the Coliseum. Leah was in rare form today, hands on her hips, leaning forward as though she was going in for the kill. Her face was the perfect combination of contempt and amusement. Poor Connor didn't stand a chance. Looking at her, he suddenly felt a wave of an emotion he knew he should recognize but couldn't quite identify. His heart skipped a few beats as he suddenly got the feeling that something was very, very wrong. Then he sensed Emily dutifully scurrying up behind him and all of his doubts were washed aside by the wave of cold affection she brought.

"It's power, Leah. Pure brute force." Connor exclaimed.

"All the strength in the world is useless against something faster than you." Leah shot back.

"What are they arguing about?" Sam asked Quill in a hushed voice.

"Who would win in fight between a pterodactyl and a grizzly bear." Paul whispered from the corner of his mouth, watching the debate intently.

Sam rolled his eyes.

"So? The pterodactyl can _fly-" _Leah shouted.

"Because it was light weight, with hollow bones and thin muscles. One good blow and the pterodactyl is done for you fool!"

"Which will never land because the pterodactyl will be _flying_ all over the place jackass."

"And? It'll have to get close if it's going to hit the bear to win this fight-"

"What are you, deficient? What have I been telling you? It'll get in there, real fast and stab at your precious bear with it's beak."

"Which is going to do what, exactly? Are you saying a fifty pound overgrown turkey is going to kill a seven hundred bound grizzly bear with one peck of it's flimsy fish catching beak?" Connor bellowed.

"Pterodactyls weighed a lot more than fifty pounds. And their beaks were hardly flimsy, idiot…"

The two continued back and forth for a while. Sam had to admit, Connor was holding his own and he did make a lot good arguments for the bear…but where Leah was concerned being right was only half the battle won. Beneath his gaze, Quill looked at Embry with a mischievous grin tattooed to his face. Embry grinned back.

"So what do _you _think, Sam?" Embry asked loudly.

Both combatants whipped their heads around to look at him. Sam flinched from the fire in their eyes.

"Um…what kind of pterodactyl?" Sam asked meekly.

* * *

Night fell over the beach, The Pack built a great bon fire, even though they didn't need it to keep warm. Emily had been so tired she had gone home. Sam sat alone, off to the side. Watching The Pack as they danced and sang and wrestled each other like a bunch of big toddlers. Then his eyes fell on Leah and Connor, sleeping side by side in a way that made Sam sick to his stomach with that damn unidentifiable emotion from before. The two had argued for four hours before finally coming to the mutual agreement that Spinosaurus was a pussy and Jurassic Park 3 was bullshit before promptly falling asleep. Leah was sprawled out on her belly, arms and legs splayed out. She had pushed Connor off the large towel that had been big enough for both of them to sleep on. Connor was laying on his back snoring loudly.

Sam didn't like seeing them together, so close like that. Even if it was totally innocent. The idea of Connor being so close to Leah made him feel…feel…God damn it, what was the word he was looking for? He knew he knew it, but it was like something in his mind was sealing off that part of his brain.

Suddenly Connor rolled over and his arm slammed heavily across Leah's back. The shape shiftner snorted in surprise for a moment and Sam felt a sudden thrill at the idea that she would awaken and roughly shove the lycanthrope off of her, maybe even rip him a new one. Instead she groaned unhappily in her sleep and went right back to snoring again. Sam shook his head and looked out at the water. Reflected in it's black surface was the moon, not quite full. But it was getting there, four days at least. Connor was a loose end, a whild card. That unknown quantity that made him squirm when no one was going to notice. That was, when he was free and out and about at least. Loose in La Push and Forks to do whatever he damn well pleased. At least on the full moon Sam knew Connor was, on those three nights a month he was contained, isolated. _'And nowhere near Leah.'_ some cold part of his brain hissed in reptillian delight.

"Holy shit dude, someone get a camera!" Paul said with a hysterical laugh.

Sam jumped a bit at the sudden sharp sound, he looked over to his pack, which had stopped to look at…

He followed their gaze.

What he saw made his blood boil.

Connor's arm, the one that had landed on Leah's back, suddenly began to pull her towards him like a fisherman reeling in a catch. They both snoored away, totally oblivious to what was going on as their bodies inched towards each other across the coarse white sand. Everyone whipped out their cell phones at once. Even Seth and Jacob. All at once they began to take aim and snop off as many photos as possible at the two of them.

Leah coughed a bit, sending up a great cloud of sand as she turned and buried her face in Connor's damp t shirt. Even from this angle he could see her face screwed up in agitation. She mumbled and twisted in her sleep.

"No…Sam…" She murmured in her dreams. Her voice sounded so small and sad, and Sam Uley felt his heart break for her all over again.

"No… Not blobfish…anything but blobfish…" Connor sounded equally troubled in his own sleep, but then he burped and seemed to settle down again.

All the while The Pack gawked and guffawed silently, taking the pictures of the two as they…they…._snuggled_.

Pain shot through Sam's hand and he winced, he looked down. He had been clenching his fist so tightly a bone had popped in his hand.

Suddenly, in a great flash, Connor sat bolt upright and pointed an accusing finger at Quill.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUCKERS?" He yelled at the top of his lungs. His eyes were closed. He was still sleeping. The Pack, however had leaped back about ten feet and had collectively yelped in surprise. Connor snorted once and then fell back onto the sand. "It was…Dumbledore!" He muttured, before resuming his snoring.

Sam stared for a moment at the surreal scene for a moment.

And then he laughed.

This whole thing was just so…_insane_.Connor was nothing but trouble and chaos. He was a disruption, a burden. One they didn't need with a leech family not a few minutes run from the reservation. But what was there to be done? He couldn't just kill him…could he?

-WHAM!-

Sam went flying a good six feet, pitched forward and skidding another three before coming to rest right in front of The Pack.

To late, he smelled it. The scent of rotten flesh and feces and stagnant water and burning rubber.

The thing attacked him first, had sensed him as the most physically powerful of the Shape Shifters.

And God, the _stink _of it. It smelled worse than the vampires, like someone had taken a really nasty dump on a really rotten corpse and then set the whole thing on fire. It was awful, and The Pack gagged on the smell when it hit them finally. They looked up at once at the thing that had sent their Leader flying. They all gasped at once. They had never seen anything like it before.

It was like something out of a fucking horror movie.

It stood sixteen feet tall…except that no, that wasn't right. It was levitating a good four feet off the ground. It's legs terminating into jagged stumps from which yellow bones protruded. It was bald and buck naked, they could see every inch of it's awful blackened flesh…like…like it had frostbite. Everywhere on it's body at once. It's hands were huge, each one as big around as a tire and terminating in long spindly fingers. Each finger was tipped in an awful yellow talon that was a foot long each. But they weren't talons either, they were it's finger bones, metacarpals elongated and hideously sharp and sticking out of rotting muscle.

"Holy God….Holy Spirit…" Seth mumbled, shaking like a kicked dog as the thing looked at them with it's huge milky white eyes with an unblinking stare. Unblinking because it didn't have eyelids. The flesh around it's eyes had been ripped and torn away.

"Holy shit!" Paul screeched hysterically.

Sam was laying face down in the sand like a slug, totally defenseless and not moving an inch.

It looked at each one of them in turn, giant naked eyes rolling crazily in it's skull as it looked each one of them in the face. It opened it's mouth then, to reveal a row of small brown teeth that were somehow rotten and yet looked horrifically sharp and deadly. A long blue tongue snaked out to lick it's chapped lips.

"I SEEEEE YOUUUUU!" It chirped at them.

"Draco put his thingy in my you-know-what…" Connor muttered completely oblivious to what was going on.

Leah woke up in that moment, rolling into a sitting position and wiping sand from her eyes.

"Guys…what the hell are you." She looked up, seeing the black and blue frost bitten skin. Seeing how tightly it seemed wrapped to the thing's skeleton. "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?"

The thing, the impossible nightmare, turned it's huge round head on it's to thin neck to look at her. It' eyes, it's horrible dead eyes locked on her form. She was wearing a white swimsuit that left little to the imagination. Those milky white eyes flashed with lust…and hunger. Jacob suddenly realized that the thing had no ears, and when it turned it's head to look at Leah he could see all the way to it's brain. The inside of the ear canal was cracked and bone white. It's pink brain glistened wetly in it's skull and pulsated ever so slightly as it spoke.

"PRETTY WOLF MEAT!" It's exclaimed, almost excitedly. It's voice was like a desiccated carcass breaking open. Petrified meat shattering like stone. "PRETTY LITTLE WOLF MEAT!" It rotated a bit mid air to face her. "DON'T BE AFRAID LITTLE WOLF MEAT! I'M HERE FOR THE SWAN MEAT!" Then the thing pointed a long cruel finger bone at the sleeping Connor. "PRETTY LITTLE VAMPIRE MEAT WITH THE RED HAIR WANTS THE SWAN MEAT! I'M TO BRING THE SWAN MEAT TO THE VAMPIRE MEAT AND I'LL GET MORE PEOPLE MEAT! I _LOVE _PEOPLE MEAT!" It exclaimed. It was like a huge demonic child, it's speech was broken and stunted and it spoke with an excitement about the prospect of receiving this 'people meat' in the same tone as a child that had been promised candy.

"Oh fuck. This is a nightmare. A really awful nightmare." Quill whimpered.

"YUM YUM! GIVE ME THE SWAN MEAT SO VAMPIRE MEAT WILL GIVE ME PEOPLE MEA-"

The abominable nightmare was cut off mid sentence as a huge black wolf rocketed past The Pack and flung itself at the thing. Sam snarled and barked as he flew forward.

The monstrosity battered Sam aside with a single blow from it's spindly arm, face suddenly contorting in rage as Sam cart wheeled, end over end and landed in a crumpled heap.

"STUPID WOLF MEAT! NOW YOU MUST ALL DIE!" It screamed horrifically.

All at once, the Pack leapt forward, phasing as they charged the specter. Sam whined a bit as he rolled over, but once his legs were back under him his pain gave way to rage and he charged the thing alongside his pack.

The thing saw them coming, rasped in hatred, and then shot straight up like a missile. The Shape Shifters all pounced on the spot it had been not a moment before and all wound up in a tangled, stunned heap as they crashed into each other.

"STUPID WOLF MEATS! NOTHING CAN STOP THE WINDIGO!" It raked it's finger bones at the air in front of it and hissed again, before turning it's attention back to Connor.

And found itself staring right into the eyes of a snarling she wolf. She stood tall over Connor's sleeping form, lips pulled back over dagger teeth, eye shining with a fury and intensity that the creature that had called itself Windigo had never seen before. For a moment, just a moment, it hesitated in the face of the Shape Shifter. The Windigo hissed back down at the snarling wolf. Bone talons fully extended, teeth gnashing it dived down at Leah, hissing it's raspy battle cry as Leah barked in fury and launched herself up at the damn thing leaping to attack. They collided in mid air, and despite it's twelve foot height Leah's mass was far greater. The Windigo screeched in mindless, hungry fury as her momentum carried it back. The two slammed back down into the earth with a sickening crack of bone and an explosion of sand.

Pain unlike anything she had ever felt, an icy stinging hurt that seemed to creep through her very veins made her scream. Not howl or bark or whine but scream in agony as she looked down to see where the Windigo's bone talons had impaled her in their fall. The thing grinned crazily up at her, blue drool leaking from it's mouth. It landed on her fur, sizzling against the heat of her body. It was colder than ice and snow. It was cold like the void of space, an eternal vacuum that drew the energy from her body with ever passing microsecond it's bone claws remained lodged inside her. It twisted those awful claws and Leah threw back her head and let loose with a sickening, madness inducing wail of torment as bones cracked and muscle and tendon were torn and sliced apart.

The Pack had been slowly extracting itself from the massive pile of furballs that had resulted from their pathetic charge at the Windigo when they heard Leah scream for the second time. Their hearts stopped as they watched the thing lifted Leah over it's head and then slammed her back down onto the beach. She yelped loudly once, and then she was silent.

They stood there silently, mouths agape as Leah twitched and convulsed at the thing's feet. The Windigo threw back it's head and screeched, a sound that could turn hair gray and burst eardrums. Then it looked back down at them, lips curling up in a horrible parody of a grin as it clicked it's talons together.

But the smile soon melted of it's face.

Then, behind them, something roared. It was a horrible, angry sound of fury and rage and hunger that made several of them yelp and jump up like startled cats. It was a rumbling noise, like shattering stone and eventually it dissolved into a deep, thick cannine growl. One after the other they all turned to look at the thing that had made that awful noise. That roar of challenge. That promise of pain.

Connor shook sand off of him, as it wafted off of him in great clouds he only looked more fearsome. The fire made the sand clouds seem to glow in the dull light, as though he was a demon still wreathed in hellfire as he escaped from the deepest pits of Satan's lair.

Then he came at the Windigo. Jaws gnashing as his teeth elongated, eyes full of nothing but rage.

There was a promise of death in his primal hunting cry.

* * *

That Windigo is going to fuck up Connor's shit.

OR IS HE?


	5. Ta Tas and Triumph

This chapter might turn out a little short, just a heads up.

* * *

The Windigo screamed. Connor roared. The two collided with bone breaking force. Connor's tackle carried both werewolf and Windigo into the surf, sending great gouts of water into the air. The two rolled, tumbling end over end as the water cushioned and slowed momentum's overwhelming force. Finally they came to a stop, still fight claw to claw, and sank beneath the waves.

Then there was stillness.

The Pack stared out at the water's surface, inky black in the night. Jacob was the first to react, he snarled and began to bound out into the water, his intentions broadcast through the Pack's mental link. He fully intended to aid Connor in the battle against the Windigo.

"_Stop!" _Sam's mental command shot through the mind link like a bullet and Jacob's legs froze beneath him.

"_Sam-" _Jacob began as he turned to face his Alpha.

As he did so, Connor erupted from beneath the waves…skewered on the Windigo's claws like a pig on a spit. Five yellow talons erupted from his abdomen, his head was thrown back and his jaws were open wide as if to scream in pain, but all that came forth was a torrent of blood. Like a crimson red geyser it spewed from his open maw to rain down into the open jaws of the Windigo. The Windigo gurgled happily as it sucked down Connor's spilt blood. For a moment frozen in time they seemed to hang in mid air. It was a scene that none of them would ever forget. Then gravity seemed to take over and they both plunged back into the sea but not before Connor managed to choke out one mournful warbling scream of pain and defeat before the icy cold waters rushed up to drown out his cry.

Leah whimpered as she rolled over onto her stomach. Her stab wounds felt cold and numb, and she felt like someone had sapped all the strength from her limbs. But the image of Connor impaled and screaming on the Windigo's claws made her snarl and force herself to her feet. Embry and Quill both trotted over to help nose at her wounds, which they noted were not bleeding at all and smelled of rot already. He knees wobbled, he body sagged against itself. Whatever that thing was, it clearly had powers beyond the flesh. The deeper it pierced flesh the more terrible the effect was. The cold that chipped away at he strength was unnatural. Demonic even.

"_Sam, let us help !"_ Seth insisted with a yelping bark.

Sam's snout twisted into a sneer as he stared out at the churning water.

"_Leah?" _Sam asked.

"_I'm fine." _Despite her physical wounds, she sounded just as strong and forceful as ever in their minds. _"Go! Help Connor!"_

Sam couldn't help the feeling of apprehension he felt at those words. Somehow rushing to save the werewolf felt counter intuitive. Of course these thoughts rushed through the mind link, filling The Pack. The feedback was not pretty, even those who didn't like Connor couldn't just leave him to die. As Sam gathered his thoughts and prepared to lay down the law, Connor and the Windigo burst forth from the waves once more. The two were grappling again, but it was obvious who had the upper hand. The vicious corpse-like beast with the icy claws held the furious werewolf back at distended arm's length, the tips of its bone claws digging frostbitten furrows in his shoulder and back. Connor couldn't get any leverage on the Windigo and the damage he inflicted with his claws on the entity's forearms were vicious and deep but ultimately superficial. Even worse, everyone could see that his struggles were lessening, his jaws snapped with less frequently and his thrashing was becoming less ferocious. He was fighting a losing battle.

Connor was dying.

Throwing back his head, the werewolf howled in torment and rage.

"_Sam!" _Leah screamed at him in a tone that was furious and desperate and the damn closest to hysterics he had ever heard her. _"Sam! Help him, please!" _

Sam snarled in anger and frustration, but with a chuff of defeat threw his head back and howled. In was a mournful cry that was meant to rally his pack and fill them with strength and determination and at the same time he sent out his mental commands. It went beyond mere words, this was more than simple telepathic communication. It was an empathic shockwave that filled every individual mind that made up The Pack's telepathic network with purpose and drive. Kill the invader, at any cost. It was a primal impulse that went beyond mere words.

There was a snap of bone breaking, a scream of pain. The Windigo's left arm suddenly seemed to crumple in on itself. Retracting like rubber snapping back into place. Yellow bone fragments burst through the taut skin as Connor threw his full weight again the shattered limb. Apparently all the fight wasn't gone from him yet.

That didn't mean the fight was done yet. Not by a long shot.

The Windigo screamed bloody murder as its limb was destroyed, screamed in shock and anger when the werewolf, no longer held at bay with two powerful limbs, came rushing at it, biting for its throat. The Windigo retreated, backpedaling as Connor clumsily sloshed towards it through the water. The monster spit, hissed, and then smashed Connor across the face with a punishing backhand so powerful it lifted him out of the water and sent him flying back eight feet. Connor landed limply and dispeared beneath the waves for a moment. Two seconds ticked by like hours before Connor surfaced again floating face down. Unmoving.

The Pack was already charging into the water, barking and howling and roaring at the Windigo. Screaming in frustration, it took to the air once more, flying high over the wolves as they leapt and snapped their jaws at it. But the deep water impeded their movements, and the Windigo's agility in the air was unquestionable. It would have been safe, simply hovering there out of reach, but the Windigo's ire had been roused, it swooped low and slashed at Quill with its good arm. He howled as the biting cold claws cut through fur and flesh, drained away a little of his body heat. Paul's jaws snapped shut in the space were the Windigo had just been and he belly flopped back into the water.

Meanwhile, away from the melee, Seth rolled Connor onto his back with his snout. The young shape shifter had managed to push Connor into shallower waters and was now nudging him towards the shore. Connor didn't move. Didn't even stir.

Finally Seth managed to flop Connor onto the beach, when he touched his nose to the werewolf's face to try and wake him he was surprised to feel that it was ice cold to the touch. Connor didn't keep a constant high temperture like they did. His powers and his body heat were closely tied to the lunar cycle that also dominated his transformations, but with the full moon so close he should be burning as hot as the shape shifters did. Instead he felt like ice. Seth lowered his gaze to Connor's stab wounds and was sickened to discover they were black with frostbite. Leah came charging over to them, moving as quick as she could with her own stab wounds. She could barely control her deceleration as she caught up to them. She stuck her nose in the werewolf's still face, roughly knocking Seth aside as she did so. She pawed carefully at his chest, which rose and fell slowly. She could hear his heartbeat, even above the sounds of the battle behind her and the roaring of the beach. But it was weak, strained. Connor was fading fast.

"_We need to get him to a hospital." _Leah told Seth.

"_Do hospitals admit werewolves?" _Her brother choked.

Leah was about to give her baby brother a telepathic tongue lashing when the Windigo screamed in protest. They both whipped their heads around just in time to see Embry rip off the Windigo's broken arm. There was a sound only of ripping flesh, the limb tearing off were Connor had broken it. The shape shifter had taken off the arm mid leap and he sailed back down into the water with his prize, the boneless flesh flapping in the wind like a captured flag as an explosion of water obscured Embry's massive wolf form.

The Windigo screamed in shock and horror, staring at the stump where its arm had been. Just then Jacob leapt up out of the water, and with a wail of fury the Windigo slashed at him. Jacob yelped like a kicked dog as he hurtled back down into the cold water. The Windigo snarled viciously and it's entire body seemed to twist and girate in anger. Then it's cold white eyes fell on Connor and it beared it's vicious teeth and hissed. Sam leapt up, teeth pulled back in a vicious snarl and the Windigo casually backhanded him without so much as a glance in his direction. It hissed, angled itself downward and shot at them like a bullet.

Seth crashed into it from the side. It was a graceless move, all but a tackle, but Seth had learned it from Connor. This time the Windigo managed to throw his opponant off before it was sent careening into the sand. Seth rolled onto his feet, shook the sand coating his pelt off of himself and snarled viciously at the Windigo. It swiped its single taloned hand at him, but turned to attack Connor. It was a serious mistake, a decision made out of exasperation and disdain. As it did so, Seth leaped up, wrapped his jaws around the Windigo's head and bit down. Hard.

Cold meat and the taste of rot filled the inside of his mouth and filled his brain with revulsion as he ground the thing's head into a pulpy mass. To say the Windigo was decapitated would be understating the matter. Seth _obliterated _the thing's skull with a single chomp, popping it like a zit. The thing fell limp from his jaws, falling onto its knees and then falling over with a dull thump. Seth gagged, his eyes watered, and he spit the gray and pink paste that had once been the Windigo's head out and then with a shudder vomited all over its headless corpse. The rest of The Pack walked over to his side, gazing down at the dead creature that had managed to hold it's own all of them combined.

"_Dude. Nice."_ Quill quipped, nudging Seth a little.

Then the Windigo exploded.

It burst like an overripe fruit, sending chunks of rotting gray flesh everwhere, pelting everyone present with chunks of frozen, dead meat. The Pack yelped and roared in protest as they were coated in fleshy bits of dead Windigo as its body self destructed. The Pack's telepathic network was temporarily overcome with mental exclamations of 'EWWWWW!'

"_Did it do that because Seth puked on it?"_ Quill asked a little numbly.

"_Maybe Seth has exploding puke power?" _Embry offered.

"_No, look."_ Jacob seethed as he starred down at all that remained of the Windigo's body.

The black shriveled heart of the Windigo lay perfectly undisturbed amidst its ruined flesh and crushed bones. It was glowing with an eerie blue light, and seemed to undulate and ripple. Not beat, but truly pulsate as though a thousand insects were crawling around inside it. As though something within it was trapped and fighting for freedom. The blue light turned a sickly white, glowed brighter, and then the heart split open like an egg sack.

An eerie bluish white cloud swirled out from it, twisting and writhing as it rose higher. Then it faded away, taking with it the distinctive scent of corruption that all of them would forever recognize as Windigo stench and leaving behind only the smell of a normal long dead body. (Body being a term only applied loosely here. All that remained of the Windigo's physical self was essentially hamburger meat.)

The Pack then picked its way through the blasted scraps of flesh to trot up to where Connor lay and where Leah was kneeling at his side.

His breathing was sick and labored, his body was corpse gray. His lips were blue. If not for the sound of his resperation and their enhanced hearing picking up the thrum of his heartbeat they could have easily mistaken him for a corpse. Leah's body had collapsed back into her human shape. She looked up at them, eyes full of pain and sadness and the grim certainty that he was about to die.

"He's not…he's not waking up." She said, her voice wobbling on the brink of total crack up.

Seth whined.

"_What do we do, Sam?"_ Jacob asked.

"_There's nothing we can do." _Sam replied simply. _"He's to far gone."_ His mental timbre was the perfect tone of neutrality. He might as well have been discussing the weather.

He was skilled enough to hide his secret relief.

"Aunty Em." Connor moaned.

"_What?" _Sam balked, retreating a step. His eyes narrowed.

"I had a most wonderful dream." His eyes opened to narrow slits. He pointed a trembling finger at each one of the pack members. "You were there…and you were there…you were there, but you were a woman…"

"Connor!" Leah shouted.

"Guh…no place like home…" Connor groaned as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He opened his eyes, again just to narrow slits, to look up at Leah.

His icy green eyes bugged out of his head as his mouth snapped shut and then swung open again.

"Holy mother of mammaries!" He shouted as his head shot off the sandy beach. "You're naked!"

Leah's eyes narrowed. One hand balled into a fist.

Then Connor's eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he fell back unconscious with an almost hollow sounding thump.

"_Is it a bad thing that I found none of this particularly weird?"_ Quill asked.

* * *

I already miss the Windigo. I think Leah does too.


	6. Paradigm Shift

Nothing has changed since 2005, Twilight still belongs to Stephanie Meyer. If I owned Twilight there would be much more chainsaw swords and vampire burning. Oh how the vampires would burn...

I have a feeling I'm forgetting something really important that needs to be added to these authors notes but I can't remember what it is.

* * *

Connor didn't wake up screaming or snap bolt upright in his bed. In fact he was curled up in a tangled mess encircled by blankets and curled up around sweat stained pillows like a serpent. The sunlight streaming in from his bedroom windows stung his eyes and made him want to retreat somewhere into a dark hole and sleep forever. The air of his room stank of rotten flesh and a lower, more animal smell. The feral scent werewolf sweat and fluids. He checked his abdomen and chest, where he vaguely remembered being stabbed by something that smelled of diseased, rotten flesh and fresh blood. He pulled the bandages away, immediately regretting it as he did so, but discovered that the wounds had already healed into ugly, jagged scars. Whether the scars were permanent due to the their supernatural nature or if his own magical healing factor would rid him of them had yet to be seen, but otherwise he seemed in fine shape though he still felt queasy and light headed.

He could hear the furious yells of the elder Connor echoing in his ears like a ghost screaming from the ether, the canine growls in his voice preceding another tantrum. Culminating in the meaty thwack of fist against flesh and his mother's pained yelp. The older Tailor was long dead, but somehow Connor still feared him. As though the essence of his evil still lurked in the shadows of the house. His breath kept catching in his chest, and anxiety was tickling his rib cage and constricting his throat. The image of Connor Senior pounding into the room to bark at him or calling him out with that growling tone of voice kept superimposing itself over the messy bedroom that had become the closest thing to his private sanctum. Like all animals he needed a den, a retreat.

Because no matter how much he tried to deny it, the house still belonged to the man who he had known as his father.

Connor was still, perfectly quiet. Listening for any noise outside in the hall, but the sound of his own jackhammer heart thumping away in his ears drowned everything away. The werewolf climbed out of bed and lumbered to the closed door and pressed his ear to the wood. He could hear soft voices coming from the den. More than one. He couldn't make out what they were saying but the conversation sounded hushed yet angry. Like two parents trying to argue while their children sleep in the next room. He waited for a moment, then looked around and dressed in clothes that were slightly less dirty and smelly. Taking a deep breath he opened the door, catching a whiff of something that smelled like old leather and burning fat, and stepped out into the hallway. He caught sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror across the hall.

For a moment the image twisted and warped, becoming a shorter, hunched over man with broad rounded shoulders and an oblong head. Reddish blonde beard and mustache and buzz cut. For a moment the expression on the reflection's face twisted into a sneer bearing pearly white but crooked teeth, eyebrows arching upward, hazel eyes blazing in anger.

Connor looked away and made haste towards the stairs to the second floor. He took a single step down but froze when the step creaked loudly beneath his weight. A shudder crawled up his spine.

"And what's your point?" His mother asked caustically.

"He was feral." Sam insisted.

"But he didn't transform." His mother continued.

"But he was feral." Sam again.

"But he didn't attack you."

"He might have. If the Windigo wasn't there."

"But he didn't."

There was a sound of a rock hard fist striking cheap coffee table and Connor flinched in spite of himself.

"But he might have!" Sam roared in frustration.

"You will watch your tone in my house young man. Because shape shifter or not I will _not _hesitate to throw you out on your ass." His mother said calmly and quietly, but the razor edge in her voice was unmistakable.

"Sorry." Sam mumbled.

There was a static quiet then. Both parties having had the wind taken from their sails for a bit.

"Elaine." Billy cut in then. "We're not talking about putting him down. He's not a wild animal after all-"

"Really? Because it sounds like that's _exactly _what you're talking about."

"No, that's not what we're saying." Billy insisted.

At that point the two of them began to talk over each other, their sentences running together.

"He's becoming _dangerous_, Elaine."

Jacob.

Connor's eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared, he was dimly aware of the hairs at the back of his neck standing up and _extending_.

"Something in him has changed. _It _has changed." Jacob was practically yipping like a little dog. Connor reached out to grip the banister.

"Changed? Changed how?" Billy asked, beating Connor's mother to the question. Concern rose in his voice.

Silence hung thick in the air as Jacob considered his choice of words carefully.

"He's recovering quicker now. Before he was unconscious for about three for hours after phasing back." some of the guys insisted on calling his transformations phasing for some reason. "Now recovery time is about half that."

"So?" Connor's mother asked, but her voice seemed smaller and carried less of conviction it had before, as though it had been deflated somewhat.

"Why now? Why after all these years?" Sam's voice carried a distinct undertone of petulant triumph that made Connor want to smack him in the mouth for talking to his mother that way.

"And it's not as agitated when there are people in the pen with it." Billy noted quietly. Agitated in this case meant snarling and roaring and making all kinds of awful racket. Sometimes throwing its own feces at present caregivers like some kind of caged ape.

"But isn't that a good thing?" Elaine asked.

"No, because now it just kind of stares at you. And you can almost hear all the things its thinking about doing to you if it gets out." Jacob said.

Connor swallowed hard. These things were news to him, and despite the fact they seemed like minor little occurrences they still managed to send slivers of fear worming beneath his skin. Deviations from the norm were bad. Deviations from the norm meant that something was different and different meant that the beast was becoming unpredictable. Unpredictable meant that it could get out and then someone would get dead.

"Last moon it started charging the bars." Sam almost whispered.

"What do you mean charging?" Billy wasn't usually one to raise his voice, but now he practically yelled. Ah, it seemed that good old Sammy boy wasn't being entirely comprehensive in his reports to Billy Black.

"Got down and all fours and started ramming into them with its shoulders. Different sections each time. Like it was testing them for weak points." Jacob clarified. "It hasn't done that since Connor was what, eleven?" The beast was a feral monster, but it was hardly mindless and it had long ago learned that escape from its silver prison was impossible.

Connor's grip on the hand rail tightened until the wood cracked and splinters dug into his palms.

"But-but he can't get out. You _said _he couldn't get out Billy. The silver-" His mother was on the verge of hysterics.

"And it _knows _it can't get out…" Billy whispered, his voice sounded thin and tired and afraid.

"So what's different now?" Sam asked.

Something _was _different, Connor could sense it. More than different. Wrong.

"Maybe… the vampires?" Jacob suggested. "Maybe it senses them and is trying to get at them." It made sense in a way, but Jacob's tone of voice betrayed that he didn't really believe it.

"Then get them _away_." Elaine demanded. They had gotten her all riled up and worried about her son now, maybe that had been their intention.

"I'm going to call Charlie-" Billy began.

"No!" Elaine said. "He is not a part of this. That man is not a part of _his _life." There was no room for argument, not when it came to the father of her son.

"The fact is-" Sam began.

"Don't tell me what the facts are you brat-"

"Elaine!"

"Don't you 'Elaine' me, William! He wants to kill my son!"

Connor had heard enough, he retreated back to his room as the argument over his fate continued downstairs. He felt betrayed by Jacob, but he wasn't sure he had any good reason to. He felt resentment towards Sam, but that was hardly a different state of affairs from any other day. Finally he was furious with his mother; because she was letting her maternal instincts run rampant over her logic.

The beast inside him, the monster he became, was changing its behavior. Maybe it was getting stronger too, as it had invaded his waking hours. Maybe the Windigo had spurred it to take control to protect itself-_and Leah-_ but then again maybe not. As much as he hated to admit it, he had to agree with Billy and Sam. Whether that agreement meant locking him up in the basement forever or putting a silver slug in the back of his skull. Connor didn't think things were bad enough anyway. Being a werewolf had the effect of turning him into a "glass is half empty" kind of guy.

Connor wanted to slam the door hard but he lost his nerve so instead he just softly pushed it shut. The young werewolf trudged over to his desk, where his current project sat open to the last page. The cook book was almost finished. A lot of it was family recipes, but this one he was currently working on was one of his own.

He slammed the home made book shut and then tossed it onto the floor.

Then he picked it up and gently, almost reverently, set it back on the table.

Then he snarled in frustration and threw it onto his bed. There was a rip of paper as it bounced, slapped into a wall and then fell to the floor with a dull thump that was almost pathetic. He was breathing heavily, breath exploding from his nostrils in short blasting snorts, shoulders heaving as his temper slipped from its reins.

He needed to get out of this fucking house.

Connor fished his keys out of his discarded pants and then swept out of his room and charged down the stairs, grabbing his coat of its hook in the hallways as he landed with a heavy thump.

The shouts from the living room ceased as his bearish frame shook the floorboards with every step. For a moment, Elaine Tailor was reminded of her late husband and that cold block of fear she hadn't felt in a long time throbbed in her chest. Sam and Jacob exchanged worried glances and rushed after him but Connor was already out the door, down the creaky wooden stairs and moving towards his car with surprising speed. Sam moved like the wind though, his long strides making him appear graceful and lithe in comparison to Connor and easily caught up to him, placing a restraining hand on his shoulder. Connor shook the hand off but half turned towards his pursuer, icy yellow eyes narrowing.

"You're not going anywhere. We need to talk." Sam insisted.

"I agree." Connor turned and took a step towards his car.

"_Now_."

"Oh no. No, not now." he snapped. "_Definitely _not now."

"Connor! You can't just walk away from this!" Sam shouted after him.

Connor slammed the door shut, starting the car and throwing it in reverse.

"Nope. I can, however, drive very fast." He slammed the gas pedal and shot from the drive like lightening, the old clunker he owned moving with surprising speed much like its owner.

Sam watched him go, nostrils flaring. Only Jacob could see the slight ripple of russet flesh that proceeded a phase, like shockwaves beneath Sam's skin and he immediately stepped into Sam's field of vision. They were such tiny sub dermal twitches that only another Shifter would notice. He felt through the (albeit largely dormant in human state) primal wolf mind link the electrical static of Sam's neurons firing and sending _that_ order to the rest of his body.

"So what now?" He asked simply.

At the sight of his Pack Mate, Sam's body relaxed. The tiny spasms beneath his skin stopped and the fire in his brain and his bones died down. His mind switched over from the hunting instinct of his animal side to the calculating thinking of his human mind. The Alpha's anger and resentment ebbed and faded to the back of his thoughts.

"I think we need to be…" Jacob thought for a moment, considering his words carefully. "Ah, _delicate _about this."

"Screw delicate, he needs to be brought back under control." Sam growled as he turned to walk back to the house.

"Control? Sam, it's not like he's on the lam or anything." Jacob dropped his voice to a whisper. "You're acting like he's totally flipped. He's not an animal…"

"Oh really?" Sam turned to stare down Jacob. "Look, I don't want him out of our sight, not so close to the beginning of the lunar cycle. Especially not after…_that!"_ He gestured wildly, but Jacob understood what he meant and he took his leader's comments in stride.

"I don't really think he's going to want to listen to you or I right now, do you?" He asked, changing the course of the conversation.

"Then get…Embry!" Sam shouted.

"He doesn't like Embry." Jacob admitted.

"Quill."

Jacob just gave him a look.

"Paul?"

"They hate each other." Jacob nodded.

"Seth?" Sam's voice wavered a bit, as he realized who Jacob had in mind.

"You know there's always only been one person who can calm him down." Jacob jabbed.

Sam gritted his teeth and slammed his fist onto the wooden railing, smashing it easily.

"Fine. Call her."

Forks was just as he remembered it. Dry and demure and depressed, not that La Push was much different. Just poorer. Other than his job, which didn't take him through the town center at all, he hadn't been out here in…years. After he had been infected it had been such an awful time that he and his mother had cut off almost all contact with their friends in Forks. For a long time, Jacob had been the only other boy he had talked to, and at that point he had been more of a jailor than a friend. Now Connor wondered if Jacob had ever been his friend at all.

"_Stop blaming him for your problems, Connor. What would you do in his position? Don't be such an oversensitive little shithead."_

As the sun was setting and the patrons filing out Connor finally pulled up to the diner and made his way inside. He remembered Connor Sr. taking him and his mother here every Sunday after church many years ago. That was long before the abuse started however, long before the shit really started to hit the fan or at least long before he had become aware of it. He vaguely remembered seeing Chief Swan and Bella there one time, only Swan hadn't been the Chief at that point. The patriarchs of the Tailor and Swan families had talked, discussing police work and kids and football. Had Charlie known, even then, that Connor was his child? That his illicit affair with his friend's wife had yielded a son? Charlie had introduced Connor to Bella but neither had paid much attention to each as Connor had been going through the stage in which he believed girls were icky and Bella seemed to be going through something similar. Connor's mother had been quiet but polite and paid attention. What had _she _been thinking about then? Connor couldn't say. His father, his biological father, was almost as much a sore spot as his surrogate parent.

Even after Connor Sr. had been put down, Charlie had never claimed Connor as his child. In fact he insisted on keeping the whole affair secret. His lover had complied but she had never forgiven him for what she felt as his rejection of herself and their child. Connor knew that, biologically, Charlie Swan was his father but couldn't say he had any affection for the man. For a long time he had been filled with his mother's anger for him, but he had eventually let go of that, or any real emotion towards the person he now considered to be little more than a glorified sperm donor. Charlie was just one more person who knew Connor's secret, and as far as Connor was concerned he didn't want them to get any closer than they already were. When the two did speak on occasion it was brief and formal, they really knew nothing about each other beyond what they heard down the distorted grape vine and Connor preferred it that way. Becoming emotionally attached to each other could complicate things unnecessarily. He assumed his father had always felt the same.

Bella was different though, Connor felt it. Bella had thrown herself head first into the world that their father knew about but desperately tried to avoid, cementing their kinship even further. Bella was a part of him, Bella was his family. Bella was the last tenuous connection to humanity that could live on. Carrying some part of his own lost humanness into the future with her own family line. Connor couldn't-wouldn't- have children, not with the curse on him. The idea of spreading the curse to another human being was terrifying to him, the idea of giving it to a child? _His _child? Monstrous. Beyond evil. He wouldn't take that chance, doing so would border on wanton malevolence in his eyes. If his sister died-or worse, was turned- then Connor thought it would all be for nothing and he might as well be dead.

That he felt as dependant on his frail, weak sister going on to live a normal human life as Bella desperately wanted to live eternally with Edward was an irony that was not lost on him and made his situation all the more bitter and desperate. From what Connor knew, Charlie simply didn't want to confront the situation with Cullen, didn't even want to think about it even. Explaining why Edward had never sensed that the police chief knew his family's secret. He was simply relying on Jacob to come to the rescue and separate Bella and Edward.

After killing the werewolf who had bitten Connor and torn off Elaine's leg, he wanted nothing to do with the supernatural, even if it was effecting his precious daughter. He had simply lost the will to fight it. To deal with it. Connor sometimes manage to pity the man, whenever he wandered into his thoughts.

Pity. It wasn't something he normally felt, certainly not self pity. Connor had come to recognize that this was his life. Lycanthropy was as much a part of him as his lungs or his skin or his hair now. He didn't like it, he hated it in fact, but it had simply become part of his routine. As soul crushingly bad as things had gotten, as much as the life he had before was ruined by it, he had learned to live with it, accept it and he had plans for his life beyond Forks. Connor would never enjoy being a werewolf, cursed to walk the Earth carrying a demonic beast inside him, enslaved to the moon and the tides.

But oh well, no sense in crying over spilled milk now. Might as well move on.

Except things were changing, Connor was now aware. The beast had forced itself to the surface outside of the lunar cycle. He was fairly certain he hadn't even transformed, he didn't remember much about the night before, only flashes of memory. A phantom smell and flash of dull colors, the taste of rotting meat that was ice cold. The moon was the lock on the thing's power, dawn and dusk were the lines that weren't crossed but it had crossed them all the same. Whatever silent truce had been between Connor and the demon wolf had been violated and now…Connor's entire world was threatened. In one simple violation of his own nature the curse he carried now threatened to tear down his carefully constructed life.

The waitress came by, and he could see her try and work out just where she recognized him from. Maybe it was his resemblance to Chief Swan or maybe she had seen him there as a child, but either way he found it oddly annoying. He ordered his chicken sandwich, and managed to finish it despite the fact that it was dry and overcooked and whoever created the barbeque sauce should be taken out behind a shed and beaten with wood blocks for watering down ketchup, mixing it with steak sauce and sugar and daring to call it a barbeque sauce. Connor was fairly sure he could make a better sauce in his sleep; in fact it gave him an idea for-

Leah slapped him upside the head as she sat down at the table.

"What the hell is going through your head you crazy bastard?" She demanded.

"Good God you're sexy when you're angry." Was his simple reply.

"Two things, idiot. One: I'm always sexy. Two: What're you doing here?"

"Eating this…_awful _food." He spat out.

She slapped him upside the head again. He smiled, but the smile faded back into the bland neutral stare of someone who was really and truly lost. Seeing her didn't make him feel better, all it did was remind him of everything he wanted and believed he could never have. Reminded him that the bottom line was that he was nothing but an animal trying to pretend to be a man for one more day.

"I'm not going back to that house, Leah. Not tonight." He poked at the wilting lettuce and slightly off colored pickle that had accompanied his meal as Leah ate three frys off his plate. "And Sam…Sam had just better back the fuck off."

"He is backing the fuck off, Connor." She snapped. "Why do you think I'm here?"

"You mean he _told _you to come out here and get me?" He asked, eyes narrowing in annoyance.

"What, did you think I came out to the heart of white devil country because I like the atmosphere? At-" she checked her watch "twelve o'clock at night? I need to be home with a sleazy romance novel and a pint of rocky road you little prick." She stared at him for a moment, and then poked him hard in the chest had enough to make him flinch but as she spoke her voice softened just the tiniest bit. "You have seriously screwed up my well planned and truly sedate and peaceful evening."

"Guess I owe you then." He mumbled, looking away.

"Damn right you do."

He starred out into the night; it was silver, not black to his werewolf eyes. The color of moonbeams, and he could see the different shades of black in the writhing shadows.

"I don't know if I can do this much longer, Leah." He said softly.

Leah opened her mouth to say something before thinking about it, but then the full weight of his words sunk in. His meaning was clear, crystal clear. She knew exactly what kind of road he was going down.

"What did you just say?" She asked anyway, because she desperately wanted to think she was just misinterpreting him.

When he looked at her it was with the eyes of a man who had just gotten the shit kicked out of him. Who'd been beaten so hard he didn't even want to get up. The same tired, resigned expression of 'screw it, I don't want to deal'.

"I'm tired, Leah." He admitted in a whisper. Maybe he was finally admitting it to himself. All the anger and the indignation had drained out of him on the ride over, now there was nothing but the bitter sickly truth. "And I don't see much point in pretending like I have any kind of future anymore. Like there's anything left for me to fight for…"

"So, what, you've got nothing to live for is that it?" Leah snapped, she was rearing back now, eyes wide and burning with anger. "One little fuck up down by the beach and suddenly all is lost? Don't be such a whiny little bitch, Tailor."

Connor shrugged helpless and leaned back in his chair.

Leah growled in frustration and grabbed him by the arm, hauling him to his feet. He gave a half hearted shout of shock and protest but she was already dragging him out into the parking lot. She ignored the stares from the few people still around as she threw him roughly up against his car.

"What the hell are you babbling about, Tailor? I don't even hear this kind of bullshit from Jacob on one of his worst days!"

"This is different-"

"Different? Different! Oh hell, pardon me for not realizing that your problems are the only ones that matter! Like _you've _got it so bad!"

"Leah." Connor was dangerously close to whining, and it made her guts thrum with anger. "You don't understand, I'm a monster…"

"I don't understand…_I _don't understand? You _are _retarded, aren't you? Hello!" She smacked him in the forehead with the palm of her hand repeatedly in an attempt to literally knock some sense into him. "Earth to Connor! Earth to Connor! This is reality speaking, you're not the only shape shifting freak of nature in the county!"

"It's not the same thing, and you know it! You…you're not a monster. Oh, don't you even start with me, Leah! Don't you go playing semantics! You don't have the uncontrollable urge to consume human flesh when the moon is full! Don't pretend like you have any idea-_any _idea- what it's like for me!"

"I don't know what it's like?" Leah asked.

"No." Connor snapped finally.

"I sit there in that stinking, dirty basement with you month and month, listening to you scream and roar and howl all night long. I read to you, I feed you; I talk to you when you're that way. I watch you go slightly insane from being locked up every night over and over again! I watch you throw up and piss and shit all over yourself every sun rise when your fur falls out in clumps and your body fucking breaks down like sugar in water. I listen to you crying and moaning and I see how ashamed and embarrassed and miserable you are when I have to help you drag yourself from the puddle of filth you wake up in. And I don't know what you go through?"

She slapped him across the cheek, her hand was a blur of speed that was almost lethal and he collapsed back against his car from the force of the blow.

"Connor Tailor if you ever say that to me again I will give you the ass kicking you so richly deserve. You hear me?"

He nodded stiffly, but said nothing. Leah was started up and he knew there wasn't a damn thing he could say to stop her. Maybe he didn't want to.

"I know you've got it bad, because I've been there with you every damn full moon since I got this job dropped into my lap. _Me. _You think you're so misunderstood? You think you're the only one who knows what you're going through! _I've _had to watch you suffer alone in that cage while The Pack sits around twiddling their thumbs above! _I've _had to watch you spasm and writhe and thrash around and fucking scream in pain knowing full well that there's not a damn thing I can do to save you from it! Not Jacob, not Bella fucking Swan. _Me_, Connor!" Her shoulders sagged, her voice dropped. "I've had to watch that disease pull you apart and put you back together again in the worst way possible, knowing I can't do a damn thing to help. Because I can't protect you from moonlight."

Connor dared look up at her, his body hurt from the tension.

"You were always the strong one, Connor. Listening to the others bitch and moan about how tough being a wolf is and then going down into that hell pit to watch you be tortured for twelve hours straight and _you _never complained once." She shook her head. "I don't want to hear this shit from you anymore, Connor. You're better than this. What happened on the beach…shit, we'll just roll with the punches. This curse doesn't come with a manual but we'll figure it out. But you're not giving up on me yet, understand? You're sure as hell not punching your own ticket on _my _watch."

Anger welled up inside him, the kind of self righteous petty anger that didn't care about logic or truth. There was just the infantile frustration of being told _no_, and Connor fought it back down because he knew that Leah was right and he was wrong as always. He slid against the door, leaning against the hood of his car. He couldn't help but stare at her; it wasn't like there was anything else nearly as pleasing to the eye in the parking lot anyway.

"I love it when you talk dirty." He finally croaked.

Leah sighed and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"Are you listening to me?" She demanded.

"Don't I always?" He mumbled under his breath, anyone else would have trouble picking it up, but Leah heard it clear as day.

"I'm serious." She insisted.

"Yeah, I know it." He smiled and placed a hand on her forearm, squeezing tightly to remind the both of them that the here and now was real. Sometimes that physicality was needed in their crazy, fucked up world. To remind each other that they were still there and sane. "And for what it's worth, I'm sorry about ruining your night."

"Yeah well, apology _not _accepted. Bastard." She huffed. "Get in the car, I'll drive you home."

"But my car-"

"It'll be here in the morning, dingus. No one's going to want to steal that piece of crap anyway." She said with a bitter laugh.

Connor laughed too, following Leah to her slightly less crappy car, enjoying the view from behind. She caught the scent before he did, freezing in her tracks. He stumbled a bit when he smelled it, almost bumping into Leah. Oh, he had smelled it before, but this was different. More metallic, coppery. As though _this _onehad been _bathing _in blood.

"Vampire." He growled. His whole body itched, his muscles tensed. Heart pounding in his chest, all of Connor's senses felt like they were magnified. He heard a dull roaring noise in his ears and his mind started to fill with static and his soul with a poisonous rage that sat inside him and soured his stomach.

The Pack described the vampire scent as sickly sweet. Like a nasty sugar rush only in their noses. Pleasant decay, death made all nice and tidy and pretty. It drove them wild, whipped them up into a frenzy. For Connor, the vampire smell was like rotten fruit. It tickled his nostrils, the horrible stench of dead flesh that had fossilized. Gone ripe in the hot sun before being stuffed in an ice box. With the Cullens he had been able to stand it, maybe because the crowd had defused their smells somewhat. But here it was more potent, and the static in his mind increased and a cold slippery feeling like a dead squid slipped into his skull. He shuddered, even though his body temperature was sky rocketing. He reached past her, opened the passenger door and nudged her inside. She stood her ground, wanting him in the car first, but he had much greater mass and leverage and eventually she lost her ground and slid inside, scooting into the driver's seat as he quickly followed suit.

Leah started the car and-

Across the street there was a flash of something with maggot white skin, fiery red hair and eyes the color of dried blood. Then it was gone and-

The engine turned over with some protest and Leah shot out of there like a bat out of hell as-

The red eyes narrowed and met his own icy yellow-

Vampire and werewolf regarded each other for a split second before a blur of motion stole the moment away from them.

Silence did not fall over the car. Neither could hear anything over the sound of each other's pounding heartbeats.

"You recognize the scent, Leah?" He asked, hunched over in his seat, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror.

"Yeah." She whispered.

"One of the locals?" He asked, already knowing the answer.

"Nope."

"Damn."

"Yeah."

"Think she knows about me?" He asked, following her.

"She sent that Windigo thing after you."

_That _was news to him.

"Really? How do you know?"

"It said so."

"It _talked _to you guys?"

"Yep."

"Fuck me." He groaned, putting his head in his hands.

"Yep."

"_Fuck __**me**__." _He said with a canine snarl as he pounded his fist onto the dashboard.

"Not tonight, Connor. I'm tired." Leah said, trying to ease the mounting tension in the car.

The car sped away into the night, gunning towards La Push with all due haste.

* * *

Kind of ambles on towards the end there. Sorry about that. Why yes, I did intend to make Connor sound like a whiney little bitch in this chapter. Him chronically overeacting to every little thing is one of his many character flaws.


	7. Weakness of a Man's Heart

One of my recent reviewers said they wanted to see more romance between Leah and Connor in the story. Their relationship in all of its complexity will be the centerpiece of the fic, but it is not going to turn outright romantic for a while. You'll get tiny little tastes of it throughout the story, especially this chapter. I think that same reviewer also asked me to clarify Connor's origins. Essentially, Charlie and Connor Senior both worked on the police force together and were pretty good friends. When Rene left, Charlie was devastated and depressed. Meanwhile, Connor Senior and Elaine had been having difficulties of their own, nothing terrible you understand. Normal marital rough spots, but Elaine felt neglected and alone and began an affair with Charlie. Connor Junior (our "hero", such as it is) is the result of that affair, making Connor Bella's bastard half brother born out a shameful betrayal of friendship that drove Connor Senior over the edge into sadistic bastard territory. Connor Senior is going to come back to wreak havoc though, and we'll learn more about him and the night Connor was bitten as the story goes on. And if you think I forgot about the "Connor and Emily slept together" reveal you thought wrong. If you've been trying to forget about it…you have a few more chapters before it gets shoved into your face again. Until then enjoy.

* * *

Leah looked over at Connor as they turned up the driveway to her house. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow, above them the moon was bloated, on the cusp of being full.

"Your mom's home." The werewolf croaked, eyes still closed. She managed not to jump but she was still startled. She thought he was sleeping…

"Figured that out all by yourself, Sherlock?" she snapped, parking the car next to her mother's.

"Think she's going to be glad to see me?" he said with a small twitch.

Leah leaned over and gently felt Connor's forehead even though she knew that his body temperature had climbed up to match her own, then paused to brush a strand of hair from his eyes, as she pulled her hand away she noted dark watery residue staining her fingers. Connor had been forced to start dying his hair a normal color after his first transformation but his body seemed to reject it prior to a moon. The werewolf's left eye opened a crack and she caught a glimpse of the molten yellow iris, clearly inhuman. It stood out against his shadowed face, almost glowing in contrast to his pale skin. His lips drew up into a mocking grin.

"Admiring the craftsmanship?" he asked.

"Just marveling at how someone so ugly could work up the courage to show his mug in public." She said, but she spoke softly.

"Snotty bitch." Connor laughed and opened the door, but didn't get out.

"Need help old man?" she asked mockingly.

Connor didn't answer, just turned and pulled himself out of the car.

"I'm not crippled, Leah." But he did sound tired, exhausted. Like the moon was burning away his strength.

She moved quickly, not even bothering to close the door and immediately rushed to his side. Not giving her help, but ready to be there in case he needed it. Connor walked slowly and stiffly, and Leah matched his shuffling pace. When they entered the house, they both pinpointed exactly where Sue Clearwater was with their superhuman senses. Upstairs, in her room. Sleeping. Leah's mother usually caught early nights these days, and as she had had a council meeting that night, Leah had no doubt she was probably tired.

Connor abruptly stumbled, his right leg losing strength suddenly and the knee buckling for a moment. Leah was right there, catching him when he couldn't catch himself. Her strengths countering his weaknesses, that seemed to be the heart of their relationship. The weakness left as quickly as it had come but Connor still leaned on Leah, not wanting to let go. They passed Seth's room and both head as well as _felt _the music coming from within.

"Hey, Seth's playing music." Connor said, his words slurring a bit.

"Yeah, Lady Gaga." Leah said with revulsion.

"Let's dance." Connor said quickly.

"To Lady Gaga?" she asked.

"What? I think some of her songs are catchy…"

"Oh? So you're gay too? Seth will be so glad he has someone to talk to." Leah wrapped one arm around Connor's waist; she could feel his body start to sag, weakening.

"Come on." Connor seemed to liven up at her touch and he stood back, rising to his full height as he put both hands on her shoulders. "Ra ra, oh la la…"

"Oh my God, Tailor. I _will _hold your head underwater until you drown if you keep singing…" Leah growled.

"I want your love and all your lovers' revenge-," Connor sang on defiantly.

"You're going to wake up my mom…" Leah fumed.

"You and me could write a bad romance!" Connor's voice became louder and more lively, his body was swaying a bit. He was rubbing some funk on it.

"I'll cut you. With a _knife_. I'll cut you _so bad_…" Leah warned.

"Ga Ga oh la la-"

She shoved a hand over his mouth.

"Shut. _Up_. You God Damn silly bastard."

Connor smiled at her from behind her hand.

Leah, in spite of herself, smiled back.

She was suddenly aware of how close they were standing to each other.

"Your smile would be so much more charming if you didn't smell so bad." Leah rolled her eyes and turned to help Connor to her room. He didn't seem to realize were they going until she had opened the door and they were on their way to the bed.

"Leah?"

"Yes, Connor?"

"Are you going to have your way with me?"

Leah rolled her eyes.

"I won't mind, just be gentle. I'm a delicate flower you know."

Leah responded by tossing him onto the bed. She crossed her arms and glared down at him as he kicked off his shoes.

"Leah?"

"_Yes_, Connor?" frustration crept into her voice.

"You owe me a dance."

Leah thought for a moment, trying to come up with a half-decent reply.

"Kiss my ass." was all she could come up with. Yet as she looked down at him, shivering alone on her bed she felt…damn it, she didn't know what she felt. But it wasn't good, she told herself. It couldn't be good. She wouldn't let it be good.

"Leah?" Connor asked again.

"Whatever it is, no." Leah insisted.

"Tuck me in and kiss me goodnight?" Connor whimpered, lower lip trembling.

"Sleep." Leah commanded as she picked up a pillow off the floor and tossed it in his face. Connor chortled at her for a moment and Leah couldn't help but laugh with him. Then Connor closed his eyes, his breathing quieted for a moment. Leah turned to leave; she wanted to get out of there before he started to talk in his sleep. Seth was standing in the doorway, waiting for her.

"Sam's going to be pissed." he warned.

"Let him be pissed." Leah growled.

Her brother shrugged.

"Bastard. Sending me out there like I'm some kind of dog catcher…" she grumbled. "You know what? Fuck him. He sent me to get Connor anyway. If he doesn't like it that I don't 'fetch' the exact way he wants me to he can send Quil next time. God damn…"

Seth just shrugged again. Leah paused, turned to look back at Connor, who was mumbling under his breath. Her brow creased with worry.

"The vampire bitch was watching him." She finally admitted quietly. Her brother's first reaction was a kind of quiet panic.

"Are you sure?" Seth asked. "Maybe it-"

"Maybe nothing!" Leah insisted. "She was looking right at him."

Seth opened his mouth to say something else, but he had to admit he had nothing to argue. If Leah said the Victoria vampire had been stalking Connor then, as far as Seth was concerned, Leah had seen Victoria stalking Connor.

"No, John!" Connor babbled with a tone of cold, nihilistic finality. "_You_ are demons!"

Leah swept out of the room still ranting about Sam, but at least it was under her breath. Seth shuffled after her, a bit reluctant to follow his sister but unable to stop himself.

"Maybe Sam is right…" Seth, who was never one to quit while he was ahead blurted out.

"Sam's just pissed because Connor wants to do me." Leah rumbled as they started down the stairs.

"Um…sure." was all Seth could say, his ears were turning red. They both knew that wasn't _entirely _true. Through the Pack's mental link both Seth and Leah were well aware that Sam's concerns about the danger Connor could pose were genuine. Any jealousy he _might _have felt he was somehow keeping hidden from his subordinates, and as far as they knew that was impossible, even for the Alpha. As far as they knew anyway. Leah was just ranting…and all Seth could do was let her. Better to let her blow of some steam than try to stop her and be run down by the freight train that was her anger.

"And you know what? I might just let him! Just to see the look on Sam's face!" Leah roared.

"Uh…okay."

"Connor being absolutely impossible to live with afterward would be a fair trade." Leah growled. "Oh, Sam would _die_!"

Seth let out a tiny grunt of agreement.

"And the best part? He'd look like a total douche if he got jealous! Why is he getting his tampon in a bunch? He's got his perfect imprint bond with Emily!" she spat. They entered the living room.

"Um…_Yeah_."

"And every time we phased it'd eat at him, because he could never get away from it. It'd be stuck in his skull. Connor, just chewing away at him." her voice faltered a bit. Oh yes, the idea of Sam having to relive Leah's night with Connor over and over again, just as Leah had to listen to Sam gush about Emily. Just as Leah had been forced to relive every time Sam slept with her cousin oh yes, the thought made her quiver a bit. But then…that would require Sam to still love her. To still care about her in any way other than as a "sister" in his pack. Even though she liked to entertain the thought that he still loved her in some small way she knew it wasn't true. It couldn't be true. And poor Connor, what was she thinking even entertaining the idea of using him like that? Stringing him along, using him as nothing more than a weapon against Sam? To build up all his hopes like that only to smack them down like that when she was done…Jesus. She could never have done anything so vile.

She wasn't Bella, after all. She wasn't going to string Connor along for shits and giggles.

"You know…_Connor's _kind of a werewolf…and _you're _kind of a werewolf." Seth was doing that thing again were he had a thought and couldn't _not _share it with the rest of the world. It had gotten him in trouble before.

"Yeah, and?" Leah spun around to face him.

"Uh…" it was about to get him in trouble again. "You're both single…"

Leah's eyes narrowed.

"You guys got a lot in common is all I'm saying." Seth put both hands up in a placating gesture. "You're both kind of scary. Um…you both hate the vampires."

"No, wait let me stop you right there before you go on and I have to hurt you. Connor and I have _way_to much baggage to enter into a normal relationship with another person much less each other. Besides he's a jerk. And a pervert. He stares at me like I'm a piece of meat; he stares like anything with a pulse and a hole like it's a piece of meat. He's rude, he's poor, he's ugly and he's not that smart. He's arrogant and he's conceited and he does that thing where he blinks rapidly for several seconds at a time like his sister. He's just…he's just…" Leah shook her head, trying to think of all of Connor's bad traits and none of his good ones. Like all the ways he could make her laugh, or his unique perspective on things. Or the way he'd look at her from the corner of his eye and grin whenever someone said something stupid but Connor didn't say anything. Or his strength and his kindness. The way he had been there for her when her dad died. They way he had stayed with her when she was up all night crying the day she realized she was menopausal and The Pack scattered into the woodwork like rats rather than deal with her "girly problem".

Connor. Connor Fucking Tailor. The bane of her existence. Asshole. Freak. _Monster._

Hell, they _did _have a lot in common.

Leah turned away and looked out the window.

"But _Leah_." Seth whined.

"Stop it Seth."

"C'mon, just hear me out."

"Shut up, Seth."

"No, I'm serious-"

"I'm serious too, Seth. Shut up."

Seth sighed and his shoulders slumped in defeat. Leah dropped down into the couch, face drawn back into a contemplative frown. Seth sat down next to her.

"You know, _I_ like Connor." Seth offered, as though his blessing would make the werewolf a more appealing prospect for his sister.

"Good. _You _date him." Leah huffed.

"Ew." Seth sneered, making a face in disgust. "Don't be gross, Leah."

"My God you are infantile." she growled with a roll of her eyes.

"I don't get why you don't give other guys a chance!" Seth threw both hands up in exasperation. Leah snorted and stood again.

"I'm not having this conversation." she hissed in anger.

"Sam's moved on Leah! He's happy now, and you should be happy for him too!" Seth barked the words, having heard them a thousand times from his older bretheren.

"Oh, here we go…" Leah snapped as she stomped out of the room.

'_He's so happy with Emily! Why can't you just be happy for him?'_

It was easy for them.

'_Emily loves Sam so much, even after what he did to her face! Now that's _real _love!'_

So very fucking easy for them to sit around and preen.

'_They make such a lovely couple; oh Emily's going to be the most beautiful bride in the history of the whole tribe!'_

And ruffle and congragulate themselves and each other and most of all _him_…

'_Really Leah, why do you just spoil everything?'_

Like it was her fault she was the one hurting…

'_Emily's your best friend, you should be glad she's glad she's so happy with Sam!'_

Like she enjoyed choking on her own emotions.

'_If you really loved Sam, you would just let him go.'_

Like she was in the wrong for having her heart torn out and shoved between her teeth.

'_Lee-Lee, it's true what they say. I've imprinted on Emily now. I'm sorry. It's over. I…I need my grandmother's ring back. I'm going to give it to Emily.'_

"Leah!"

Speak of the Devil. Literally.

Sam, flanked by the entire pack. Was that concern she had heard in his voice or just her own wishful thinking? She took a moment to wipe the tears that had gathered in the corner of her eyes before turning to the entrance. Replacing the grief with anger and irritation was easy, practice made perfect.

"_What_?" She snapped, pouring on the attitude.

"Are you okay?" He asked, entering the room. Seth immediately stood up as if at attention, good little soldier that he was.

"No! I'm tired! I have work tomorrow and I was up all night looking for your lost pet!" She snapped.

"See, Sam? She's her usual chipper self." Paul growled. "All rainbows and sunshine…"

"Bite me." Leah spat at him.

"And what if I did?" Paul sneered. "What're you going to do to stop me, Girly Wolf?" Leah's face twisted in anger as she took a step forward.

"That's enough, Leah!" Sam commanded, hand reaching up to rub his forehead. "Paul, go wait outside."

"What?" Paul shouted in indignation. "But she-"

"I didn't ask for your opinion, Paul. Go _wait_. _Outside_." Sam's voice deepened, the muscles in his neck seemed to bulge. Against the Alpha voice, Paul was as helpless as any of the others. He did as he was commanded, as was his nature. Sam sighed, shook his head and then looked back up at Leah. "_Are _you okay, Lee-Lee?"

'_No.' _she wanted to scream at him. _'Not when you look at me like that, like you were really concerned Connor was going to hurt me. Not when you call me that name. Not when you spark the tiniest bit of hope in my heart even when I know it's a lie. No. I'm not okay Sam. You know I'm not okay you bastard.'_

"Yeah, sure. Why?" Leah channeled her sadness into anger. It was something she was good at.

"Where is he, Leah?" Jacob asked. Something about his tone of voice made Leah feel deffensive.

"Upstairs, in my room…" she answered.

"Quill, Embry. Get him, get him in the truck. If his resists, _make him_." Sam ordered crisply.

"Whoah, whoah, whoah! I just put him down, what's this about?" She asked. Quill and Embry paused for a moment, unsure of what to do.

"We're moving him out of here; I don't want him hurting you." Sam said stiffly.

Leah starred at him for a moment. Blinked.

"Sam, what are you doing?" she asked. The accusatory tone of her voice was unmistakable.

"Something that should have been done long ago." Sam growled. "We're putting him in the pen until we figure out what's happening."

"But it's not full moon until tomorrow night."

"I know."

"So…so you're just going to lock him up like a criminal is that it? And then do what, throw away the key?" She asked harshly.

Sam considered her words for a moment, as if trying to find the right rebuttal.

"In a sense." he finally decided, there was no point in trying to explain himself to her. He was Alpha, after all. "Yes."

"What is his crime?" Leah asked.

"None." Sam admitted. "This isn't Connor's fault. This isn't a punishment, Leah. It's just…just the way things are." after a pause "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" Leah asked, voice rising into a scream. "You're _sorry_? Don't apologize to me, apologize to Connor! You know he hates that place! You know what you're condemning him to!"

The Pack cringed as one at Leah's outburst at Sam.

"Yes, if there was any other way I would do it. But there isn't, he's too dangerous."

Leah laughed bitterly turning away from Sam and shaking her head in disbelief. She was a mess, her emotions and thoughts were tripping over themselves and each other trying to reach their conclusion. Logic warred with her feelings, but all she really knew was that Sam was to blame for this. Something inside her screamed that Sam was just ripping her heart out again to keep Connor and her apart and something else screamed back that he was doing this because he thought she was so weak she couldn't protect herself. Yet another part of her understood Sam's position and wondered if she would be so judgmental if it was anyone else.

"Dangerous to who?" She finally asked.

Sam was silent for a moment.

"Everyone."

"Bullshit." she hissed.

Again, Sam was silent.

"I can't trust him to be on his own until we learn more. He's to volatile now, and he's always been unpredictable. Not traits that go well with out situation, Leah." the leader of the Shape Shifters was quiet for a moment, before adding. "_'The werewolf instinctively seeks to kill the one it loves best._' Remember that, Leah?"

"Superstitious horse shit and old wives tales." she sneered.

"Just like vampires and spirit warriors, huh?" he sighed. "You don't have to like it Leah, in fact I don't really care if you do either way. This is an order. The council happens to agree with me."

Naturally, especially the way he probably told the story. Casting Connor as an out of control, yellow eyed demon with only rage and hunger in his heart who would gobble up their children and grandchildren in the night.

"This is so typical of you Sam." Leah huffed, turning to face him.

"I'm done arguing with you-"

"Whenever you meet a problem you can't just tear apart and throw away you just sweep it under the rug-"

"Leah this is not a matter of personal interest and you know it-"

"Because you just can't deal with something that doesn't fit in your picture perfect world-"

"Picture perfect world? Leah, you don't know what-"

"Connor is a human being; you can't just stuff him into a closet and hope everyone forgets about him!"

"_**Enough! Stop it, Leah!**_" Sam finally roared, his Alpha voice splitting the night. Leah immediately closed her mouth, but her eyes burned with rage.

A few moments later Sue Clearwater entered the room, clutching her bathrobe closed. She was still half sleep, but the half of her that was awake was very much angry at this intrusion.

"Sam? What is going on?" She demanded though she looked at Leah, who didn't take her eyes off him.

Leah and Sam looked at each other furiously. Nostrils flaring neither were sure where to begin. Seth stood up and ran to his mom, explaining everything to her as Leah and Sam regarded each other.

Leah shook her head and looked away; maybe Sam did have a point. The beast inside Connor _was _dangerous, maybe even more dangerous than a vampire. She sensed Sam's anxiety when Connor was near, as though he was just waiting for him to transform and go on a killing rampage. She didn't even need the mind link to sense it, she knew Sam better than he knew himself. Certainly better than Emily did, but it really mattered little. The fact remained that Connor was only the beast at full moon, last night's little outburst notwithstanding. She was sure that locking Connor up in a cage like a zoo animal for the rest of his life wasn't the answer.

"Billy agrees that we should keep Connor under closer observation now, in fact he was the one who suggested Connor staying on the reservation from now on." Jacob offered. In addition to being the tribal chief, Billy Black had been close friends with Connor's father, and had practically helped his mother raise the boy when he had been killed. "Even your mother agreed." At this Leah shot her mother a hard glare, but Sue simply returned the stare with one of her own, quickly rebuking her daughter's dirty look in a way only a mother could. His was not an opinion Leah or anyone else for that matter would take lightly but then Jacob added with a rueful stare at his Alpha. "But he doesn't think sticking him in the pen is necessary…or wise." He left out the part where his father had also described it as 'cruel'.

Sam didn't bother to look at Jacob, but he could feel his stare and shrugged.

"But he and the rest of the Council ultimately left it up to me to determine the best way of containing this problem." he insisted.

Leah stared at him. Even he seemed to be having doubts about his descison, but she knew that when it came to Connor, he would always ere on the side of caution.

Maybe he was right.

About so much.

Sam sighed again; his shoulders sagged for a moment.

"Quill, Embry-"

"No." Leah cut in. "I'll bring him down."

"You sure?" Sam asked. "Maybe I should have someone go up with you just in case."

"In case what?" Leah hissed, glaring up at Sam. He looked down at Leah for a moment, before giving his assent with a small nod. "And I'll drive him down to Jacob's."

"Absolutly not. He's going in the truck." Sam insisted.

"Then I'll ride with him."

Sam considered this for a moment, before again indicating that he would allow it.

Leah rushed passed him and headed up the stairs. Nearly knocking Quill and Embry over as she made her way to her room. She stopped just outside her doorway, considering how she was going to explain this to him…

"Come in, Leah. It's your room…" Connor rasped.

She clenched her teeth for a moment, hands balled up into fists before entering. Connor sat up on her bed, hair dye running in black rivets across his face and staining her pillow and bed sheets.

The hair underneath was a mane of thick corpse gray with a darker streak of almost black along the left side. She actually thought he looked better without the hair dye. Not more handsome but more…distinguished. Almost proud.

"I told you to get some sleep." Leah barked.

Connor said nothing for a moment, just starred at her for a while. It didn't take a mind reader to figure out what he was thinking about. There was a naked longing in his gaze that he didn't try to hide. His lust for her was no secret among The Pack. If anything it was a joke, one he gladly partook in at his own expense. That look he gave her betrayed something deeper.

"Before you ask, I heard everything." He finally admitted.

"There's not way of getting out of this." Leah said. "If you run, they'll chase you. If you fight…"

"I'm not running. I'm not fighting." Connor informed her. "He's right. This is the safest thing to do." His voice was oddly hollow, emotionless. Leah didn't like that.

"I'll be there with you." Leah said.

Connor stood, shakily. Technically it was a moon day and boy he was feeling it. His joints were pained and felt weak, his flesh was crawling. He _hurt_. All over, and as the day dragged on it was only going to get worse. She really wanted to comfort him, but she couldn't find words that didn't sound cheap or false. In the end, maybe he didn't want her to speak.

She had to help him down the stairs as dizzyness set in from moving to much. Jacob rushed to help him when they finally hit the landing but Connor brushed him off. Then he looked up at Sam, yellow eyes totally inhuman. Thick red veins pulsing in his eyes like fat hemorrhaging worm writhing in milk. Sam starred back in defiance. Connor's gaze flitted to Sue Clearwater.

"Mrs. Clearwater." Connor said with a nod. Sue crinkled up her face in disgust and backed away in response. It was the eyes that provoked that reaction in her; they were the eyes of a demon. A sad, defeated demon but a demon still.

As Leah and Connor made their way out the front door, the werewolf leaned in and whispered into her ear with a wolfish grin:

"I think your mom likes me."

* * *

Connor was feeling a little better as Jacob's house came into sight. Jacob drove the truck, Leah as in the middle. Presumably, this was done so Connor didn't feel like a prisoner. The werewolf looked outside to see the massive black missile that was Sam's wolf form streaking through the trees, easily keeping pace with the car and knew this wasn't true. The windows were rolled down, their combined body heats making it an oven even for the three of them. Finally the pulled up to the house. Billy Black was waiting outside, talking on a cordless phone. Connor was able to get out of the car on his own, but he leaned heavily on the hood of the car. Sam trotted up beside him. The werewolf craned his neck to look at him.

"Yeah, what?" he rumbled.

Sam snorted, lips momentarily pulling up as if to show his teeth.

The two glared at each other for a while before Sam turned and loped away.

Connor looked over at Jacob, who was getting out at the opposite side.

"So, I guess we're roommates." Jacob said.

"Guess so."

"I brought a TV down for you."

"Any porn mags?"

"No."

"Then go to hell."

The two regarded each other for a moment before laughing. Leah slapped Connor on the back of the head a moment later and said something to the effect of "pervert" this just made Connor laugh harder, even though it made his ribs feel like they were fracturing. It wasn't long before the rest of The Pack emerged from the forest in human form, approaching the driveway. Connor tried to make it seem like he had something of a spring in his step as he walked up to the porch, but even when he wasn't feeling like shit he didn't have much in the way of a spring or any spring-like motion in his step, so it didn't really work. Billy held out the phone to Connor.

"It's your mother." He said with a wince.

"Oh _shit_." Connor's face visibly blanched.

"Yeah, pretty much." Billy winced again.

Relucantly, Connor took the phone, starred at it for a few seconds and then sighed.

"Hi mo-…Yeah. No, yes….Yes mom I'm at Billy's house…sorry _Mr. Black's _house…no…yeah mom I'm fine…no, they didn't hurt me…no, they're not going to hurt me…no, I don't need you to come down here and kick Sam's ass I said I'm _fine _mom…no mom…no! Mom, no! Don't shoot them!…La Push kind of needs them and…yes mom…no mom…no mom, don't call the FBI, I haven't been kidnapped!

Jesus, mom! Mom! Mom! Listen to me! Look, it's all going to be fine. I'll probably be home by the weekend…yeah okay, look mom I've got to go…yeah. Yeah, Leah's with me…yeah…I…she's… yeah…well I mean she's always pretty-aw Jesus, mom! Stop it. I said _stop it_. N-no mother I'm not giving you lip!…sorry…sorry mom…love you mom…bye."

He handed the phone back to Billy.

"She is one scary lady." Connor said after a moment.

"You have no idea." Billy replied, his voice a little shaky, he set the phone down on the porch railing and backed away from it, as if afraid that Elaine Tailor would sudden'y leap from the speaker and throttle him. "So, Connor. I guess you're going to be staying with us for a couple days."

"…_Awesome_." he answered without much in the way of enthusiasm.

"We fixed up the pen…"

"Cool."

"And we think we may have identified the creature that attacked you."

Connor immediately perked up at this.

"And?"

"Well, as you know it called itself the Windigo. The term was very familiar to me, but I did a little digging anyway. Called up some folks on the Magical Old Indian Hotline as it were…the Windigo were once polific in the Canadian wilderness, pretty much every tribe north of here has stories about them. Encounters in the ancient past." he motioned for Connor to follow him inside the werewolf did so. "It seems that there are spirits of ice and hunger…angry things that usually inhabit the loneliest places in the mountains but will ride the wind down into the lowlands in the coldest times…or the most desperate times. Times of famine when…when people were forced to do the unthinkable to feed themselves and their families."

"Cannibalisim. This thing causes it?" Connor asked.

"Sometimes. Sometimes it will tempt a man into eating the flesh of his brother but in the old times, there were instances when all it had to do was wait. The Windigo spirit needed only find a man who had tasted human flesh and promise him more. Promise him power. Promise him he would never feel that…that fear and desperation again. Thus a bargain was made and that spirit of the cold and the dark would enter the man. Change him…into that creature you fought. The Windigo made flesh."

"Jesus…" Connor shook his head. Then who had been that man before the Windigo spirit had got hold of him? Some hiker lost in the woods somewhere? Some poor smuck just trying to survive? Had the spirit tempted him into eating human flesh or had he already done by the time it found him and only needed to offer him a way out? Who had he left behind to become a host for that…that monstrosity? Then a thought occurred to him.

"Wait a minute, if this thing can only…'bond' with a cannibal then that means there can't be very many of them left. I mean, it's not like the 1500's where people just couldn't hop into their car and drive to the grocery store and had to eat their children whenever they go snowed in."

Billy nodded, they had entered the living room.

"Yes, it seems as if their kind is almost extinct. Reports of true Windigo killings are almost non existent in modern times. But as long as there is weakness in a man's heart to drive him to _that_…" Billy shook his head. "These creatures will always be with us."

They both took a moment to look out the window, thinking the same thing perhaps. Vampires and Shape Shifters and werewolves were all well in good, but if they existed what else was creeping around out there? The Windigo was proof enough that there was more to the supernatural world than met the eye and some of it could be enough to terrify even _them_.

"The real question is, why was it here? Why come after you?" Billy asked.

"Victoria." Connor growled.

"Yes, it seems she's switched her focus from your sister to you." Billy nodded.

"Why?"

"Who knows?" he admitted. "Perhaps in an attempt to confuse and spread us thin? Trying to alternate between targets to catch us off guard? The real question is _how _did she find out about you and has she shared this information with anyone else."

Both were silent for a moment, considering the situation.

"I've called your father and informed him that it may be time to talk to Bella about you." Billy finally admitted.

"And how did he take it?"

"He hung up on me."

"Yeah, sounds like my Dear Old Dad." Connor said bitterly.

"You shouldn't judge him to harshly." Billy admonished.

"And why not?" Connor demanded.

Billy opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.

"Thought so."

"He did what he thought was right." Billy said finally.

"For himself and his reputation."

"That had nothing to do with it."

"You're defending him?"

"His _intentions_, not his actions." he insisted. "Charlie can be a damn fool sometimes, but I've never questioned his loyalty to his family."

"I'm not his family. He's made that abundantly clear. With his _actions_." Old bitterness swirled up to the surface. His anger…his mother's anger. Billy saw that anger in him, and sighed.

"Connor." Sam loomed in the doorway.

The werewolf paused momentarily. Jacob was flanking Sam, looking at the floor somewhat sheepishly. For the briefest of moments, Connor considered defiance but it quickly evaporated. _'So. This is how it's going to be. Huh?'_

"Leah's waiting for you downstairs." Jacob muttered.

Connor's face was unreadable as he trudged past them, towards the dark rectangle that led to his eternal prison. It seemed like he was always falling towards that gaping dark hole. He had spent ten years fall in, crawling out, and then falling in again.

The only difference is, this time he would never crawl out again.

* * *

Charlie Swan stared at the phone, next to it was Elaine's number. Next to that was Connor's cell phone number. In his trembling hands he held an old photograph. Bella was due to be home any minute, she was out with that Cullen boy. In fact she was out past her curfew. Again. Not that he'd say anything to her when she got home. He never did. Renee had always said it was important that Bella not feel stifled.

Besides, he had other things to talk about with her.

He briefly considered call up Billy again, but decided against it. Instead he picked up the phone, started dialing Elaine's number then stopped and cleared the number. The he started dialing Connor's number and stopped.

"_Charlie why are you doing this? I love you!"_

"_This is for the best, Elaine."_

"_He needs you! Charlie, _I _need you!"_

"_He's going to have enough problems without going around town with everyone knowing he's a bastard."_

"_Don't call him that!"_

"_That's what everyone else is going to call him. How's it going to look. I gun his father down in the middle of this forest on the night of the full moon, Billy winds up in a wheel chair, you loose a leg, Connor's been _mauled_…and you move in with me a day after you're out of the hospital."_

"_You don't care about us! All you care about is your fucking reputation you bastard!"_

"_Elaine…you know that's not true. This is just for a little while. Until everything settles down."_

"_She's not coming back, you know."_

"…_What?"_

"_Renee. She's not coming back. She think's you're a joke. She's raising Bella to think the same way."_

"_Elaine, I know you're upset…"_

"_Don't touch me you bastard! You miserable rotten bastard! I should have let Connor tear you to pieces!"_

"_Elaine, you don't mean that."_

"_Stop it! Let me go! Don't touch me! I hate you! Do you hear me? I hate you!" _

She had been so right. So right, about _everything_.

Ten years later they were both alone. Connor was being locked away in Billy Black's basement. His daughter was dating a fucking vampire and she thought he was a joke. He was a joke. Maybe he was a good Chief of Police, but he had failed the people he loved in all the ways that mattered. All because he'd been to much of a coward to own up to what he had done. Elaine…Connor Sr…Bella…Connor himself. He had failed them all.

He really had intended to set things right with Elaine. But by the time he stopped being such a chicken shit and got his balls together she was so entrenched in her hatred for him he had been unable to do anything about it and Connor looked at him like an ant crawling through his living room. A insect that should be squashed if it didn't make a quick enough exit. He knew he deserved it. Every iota of hate and contempt they had for him, and he'd give anything to have Elaine's love back. But he had been to late. Story of his life.

He heard the door open and close, Bella was home. Charlie looked down at the picture and grunted.

"Bella?" Charlie called out just as he heard her start flitting up the stairs. There was an annoyed huff and a moment of silence. Then a single stair creaked as she tried to sneak up the stairs. "Bella I need to talk to you. _Now_."

Another annoyed huff.

Then Bella came rushing into the room, trying to hide her annoyance.

"Look, Charlie if this is about the curfew I'm really sorry but there was a lot of traffic and-"

"Sit down Bella. I don't care about your curfew right now."

Bella's eyes widened in surprise then attained a kind of dull passiveness.

"Then can I go upstairs? I've got a lot of homework to do."

"Edward can wait."

Bella's jaw dropped.

"I…I mean I don't…what…what are you talking…about?" Bella tripped over herself verbally almost as well as she tripped physically.

"Sit down Bella." He repeated himself.

She did as she was told, but then she started babbling. Begging him not to be angry at Edward. It wasn't his fault it was hers… Charlie ignored her. He looked down a t the picture.

Connor Senior, Billy Black and Charlie Swan stood around a big grill with burgers and hot dogs cooking on it. In the background he could see Jacob chasing Bella around with a mud patty he had insisted was cow poo. Harry Clearwater was chatting with Elaine. Connor was starring at Leah Clearwater with the look of a little boy who hadn't entered puberty yet but could still fall for a girl. _Hard_. A bandage was around Connor Senior's shoulder. He'd been bitten by what everyone thought was a bear on a hunting trip in Maine.

That was long before he started hitting his wife and terrorizing his son.

He looked up at Bella, his beautiful daughter. She was looking at him with equal parts shock and annoyance. He handed her the picture and started telling her about the people in it.

And he didn't know if she could think less of him than she already did but if she could she sure as hell would by the time he finished. It didn't matter.

Because it was time to start putting things right.

* * *

Originally this chapter had a much more depressing ending in which Sam essentially just beat the hell out of Connor and left him on the Cullens' doorstep to do with as they please…but I figured that was _way _to out there and pushed Sam over the line from jerk to complete monster. This is a much better way to end the chapter methinks. And yes, I did retcon Billy's wheelchairboundess from being caused by diabetes to connect it with the night Connor Jr. was bitten.


	8. Forever is for Chumps

The one thing I miss about the previous chapter six, before I rewrote it? Connor calling Jasper "Harpo" and making fun of Edward for driving a Volvo.

Also, for the record, yes I did forget about Jared. A character that just completely slipped my mind. He'll turn up later.

* * *

Something was moving beyond the bars. Large and dark and covered in dusky corpse gray fur. Its two legs were powerful and thick, yet jointed like a wolf's. Long muscular arms hung like cranes from broad, sloping shoulders the joined upward into a thick bull neck, which in turn anchored powerful jaw muscles. Each finger was tipped in a obsidian talon which tapped rhythmically against the powerful thigh. Molten red eyes smoldered with barely contained rage. Rage and lust. The tall, triangular ears twitched at the sides of its broad head, tracking her movements. She was pounding on the wooden door, screaming for him to come and get her, screaming to be saved. He wanted to run to her, to save her and although the sounds of her panic and fear tore him apart inside she was safe. The silver and iron protected her.

Then the door swung open and it stepped out of the enclosure.

For the first time in its awful existence it was free, tilting its head back and sniffing the air but there was no hesitation in its movements. It knew exactly where to go, hellish instincts plotting out every gristly murder before it even began. Emily cowered before it, a mouse before a angry bear. The werewolf lowered its fiery red gaze to her, anda cruel grin spread across its twisted snout, then it looked up at him and its smiled only widened. He screamed and tried to run, to save her, to fight it off but when he looked down he realized he was sitting in a wheelchair. Immobile. Incapable of saving her from the monster. It reached down and tore her shirt open, drool dripping from its pointed fangs anddrizzling onto her russet skin as she screamed for Sam and it raised one clawed hand…

"**Raaaaggghh!" **

Sam awoke with a start at the jagged, ear popping cry from beneath the house. He wiped saliva from the corner of his mouth and propped himself up on the couch. He snorted, sniffled in an attempt to clear his nose. His heart was hammering in his chest, his mouth was dry. The air seemed oddly chill, despite the fact he never got cold anymore. Not since he phased.

The windows shook, the entire house seemed to shudder. The werewolf howled, a fearsome cry. It sounded to Sam like the malevolent twin of his own wolves' howls. It echoed with power, yet was tainted with unbridled rage. The howl soon dissolved into a hollow, growling bellow. He looked up at the clock, saw that it was twelve o'clock at night. The Alpha ground his teeth together, Connor should have been settled by now, unless someone was antagonizing him. If Quil was fucking with Connor's beast form again Sam swore he was going to feed him to the werewolf, and where was Leah? She should be down there with it-_him_, it was her turn. As much as Sam hated to admit it, Connor never made this much of a fuss when Leah was on watch duty.

Beneath his feet, the floor shuddered. There was a thunderous, splintering _crash_. A hollow, bellowing roar shook the entire building, then shouting. Sam leaptto his feet. He could feel his muscles coil, the air around him seemed to grow humid. Muscle spasms made him feel like his flesh was bubbling. He was more than prepared to phase.

Seth ran into the room then, he was sweating. Eyes darting about in a panic. The boy's mouth opened and he stuttered something, but between his verbal stumbling and the racket going on downstairs Sam couldn't make heads or tails of it.

"C-Connor!" Seth finally spat. "He's going nuts!"

Beneath them there was another shout. Leah.

Seth continued, but Sam had heard enough. He raced past the boy, moving with weightless speed the belied his great size. It took him ten seconds to cross to the basement door and rocket down the steps. He immediately recognized the scents of those in attendance. Paul, Jacob, and of course Leah. Quil and Embry were probably running boarder patrol. He heard their racings heartbeats, felt their agitation. The bitter, tangry scent of the werewolf hung thick in the air, and it made his hackles rise.

"What the hell is going on?" Sam shouted over the ruckus.

There was a blur of speed behind the silver and iron bars. Obsidian claws lashed out anddug deep grooves into the wall. A pelt of dusky corpse gray fur, each strand black at the tips and coarser than a true wolf's. Powerful muscled legs, broad shoulders terminating in long gorilla arms tipped with claws that looked like they could disembowl a fucking stegosaurus. Sam couldn't help but flinch away from the hideous monstrosity as it raged. It was disgusting, a monster. Pointed ears pressed back, lips pulled back over massive pearly white fangs. There was no word for them other than fangs. They were the crushing teeth of the prehistoric dire wolf, not the slashing daggers of the Shape Shifters and their cousins, the Timber Wolves. They were teeth made for grinding bones and armor. They were railroad spikes, and the werewolf could use them to mash a vampire's limbs into gravel.

Paul was holding the rifle, and seemed to be fighting the urge to open fire on the damn thing. Leah was shouting, Jacob was shouting. Behind him Seth started shouting. The whole operation seemed to be spiraling out of control somehow, and Sam wasn't entirely sure why or how to pull it together again. He had half a mind to take the rifle from Paul and start shooting it himself. The image of this slathering, mindless beast putting its filthy paws all over _his _Emily made him growl. Dream or not.

The icy yellow eyes stood out against the dark silhouette. The thing let loose another angry roar, then it turned away from them, the eyes disappearing in a streak of cold fire. It showed them the large hump of its back, like a bear or a buffalo. There the powerful muscles of its arms were anchored, giving its swing immeasurable power. It ran to the back of The Pen, pounded a huge fist into the wall and then slammed its forehead into it, beating its thick, boxy skull.

"Leah?" Sam cried.

"I don't know!" she cried back. A furious howl of pure hate drowned out the rest of her reply.

"When did it start?" Sam asked.

"Just about a few minute ago!" Jacob answered. "He was fine, he was eating and then…he just started going ape shit!"

The werewolf stomped over to where they had tossed the deer carcass in earlier that day. It was a huge buck. When Sam had last seen it all that was wrong with it was that it had had its throat torn out. The hungry werewolf had ripped off both forelegs, Sam couldn't see them anywhere, it had probably eaten them bones and all. Hooves as well, it had done that before. Then it had torn open the deer's abdomen, devouring its liver and great portions of its abdominal muscles. It never ate the intestines or the bladder, anything that had to do with bodily waste. Sam had always joked that maybe it was just squimish that way. There was nothing funny about it now. Intestines were strewn about the floor, they had been partially tampled in the werewolf's tantrum. Deer shit was smeared everywhere, oozing from the ruptured organs. If he had been in his wolf form the animal scat would have excited his predatory instincts, in his human form it combined with the werewolf's scent into something unbearable.

The huge gray werewolf shook himself like a dog, and then grabbed the deer by the back legs. Hefting the large animal it roared again, snorted and then rushed the bars and slammed the carcass into them. The cage shook, but the deer was more damaged than the metal. Blood spattered them as deer hide was ruptured and bones snapped like twigs. Paul screamed at the indidnity of it. The werewolf spun and then slammed the deer into the wall.

"Paul, give Jacob the gun!" Sam shouted. "Seth, go upstairs. Phase and get Quil and Embry down here now. Leah, call Billy, tell him-Leah? What are you doing, get away from there!"

Leah was stepping right up to the cage. _No one _stepped up to the cage. Not even Billy would get in arm's length of it. Leah was breaking ten years worth of rules and practices and even worse, as Sam could only gape in horror she put her face up to the bars.

"Connor."

The werewolf roared and threw the bloody, shattered, shredded corpse against the opposite end of the pen. The body burst, flying apart like it was made of gelatin as it smacked into the wall.

"Connor!"

It turned to look at her. The lips pulled back against its teeth, exposing gray-black gums. The eyes were totally inhuman. The whites of the eyes had turned a deep, bloodstained crimson. Contrasted with the thick, icy yellow irises they were almost disorientating. Hypnotizing.

"Jacob, get her back!" Sam cried, fear rising in his voice. He didn't even need to give the order, Jacob and Paul were both rushing towards Leah when the werewolf leapt forward and slammed against the impregnable barrier that kept it imprisoned.

The bars rattled, but did not give. They did not even bend or warp. The werewolf reeled back, fur singed but not hurt. Only enraged further. Paul and Jacob faltered as the beast snarled at them, saliva flecking its chin and dripping down to sizzle on the ground. It reached out as if to grab them, as though it could reach past the silver and cold iron, forgetting what it had learned. The werewolf had gone out of its mind with fury. Jacob and Paul were both safe, they knew this intellectually, but their primal animal selves were frightened by the monster. Instinct told them to flee, and they faltered.

"Connor, stop!" Leah banged her hands against the cage.

The werewolf turned and looked down at her, teeth still bared.

"_Stop_." She warned.

It was breathing heavily, shoulders rising and falling with each billowing breath. Then it opened its jaws and roared as it fell onto all fours and charged at her. It was nothing more than a streak of a shadow as it crossed the spot from where it had stood to where Leah was standing in the span between Sam's heartbeats. Leah either tossed herself back or jumped backwards and simply tripped but either way she wound up on her back as the seven and a half foot tall monster slammed into the bars where she had stood mere seconds before. Sam threw himself down next to her, gathering her up and pulling her back. He pulled her a good eight feet away from the werewolf and clutched her to his chest.

He hadn't held her this close since…since…before he imprinted. No! Since before he even phased. She felt good there, _right_. As though she belonged there. Belonged with _him_. He looked down at her, but she wasn't looking at him. No, she was looking at…

Sam looked up at the werewolf. It wasn't raging or roaring anymore. No, now it stood upright, or at least as far as it could considering its gnarled back. One paw-like hand on the bars, beneath the huge hand its skin sizzled, smoked. The werewolf didn't care. Its eyes narrowed as it stared down at Sam and Leah. A deep, buzzing growl rose from its barrel chest, which was mottled white. Leaked past the mashing railroad spike teeth. Sam looked it in the face.

Connor's face, twisted and hardened with demonic mockeries of lupine traits. His features broadened and thickened and stretched across a blunted, shortened wolf's skull. Lost somewhere along the way a between a human's mouth and nose and a wolf's muzzle. The jaw thickened to allow for a stronger bite. The werewolf's head was shorter than a wolf shifter's long narrow skull but just as heavy. Thick bones crushed together into armored calcium plates beneath the tough, leathery hide.

The werewolf growled at him, the echoing snarl reverberating in the chamber. Then it took its hand away from the metal. There was a sick peeling sound and an explosion of noxious gas. Blackened dead flesh hung in clumps, clinging to the silver bar even as it sizzled and began to bubble and liquefy. The monstrous obscenity backed away, eyes locked with Sam's. Hatred shone through those eyes with such a sickening intensity that they almost seemed to turn a poisoned, inflamed red.

Sam looked down at Leah again, and realized he was cradling her.

"Lee-Lee…"

She shoved him off of herself and scrambled back to her feet.

The werewolf tilted his head back and sniffed the air, growling. Then it roared again, stomped its feet and then lowered its head. It fell back onto all fours, though when it touched the blackened, scabbed mess that was the palm of its left hand it warbled in pain and instead supported itself on the knuckles instead. Sam stood beside her and the werewolf growled at him again before slinking to the back of The Pen and sitting down. Glaring out at them from the gloom of its prison.

* * *

The beast that shared Connor's body had become quiet. It had returned from the shadows and now paced up and down the length of the enclosure. Occasionally it lowered its head and nibbled lightly on the pulped flesh of the deer where it was smeared along the walls or piled on the floor but otherwise it seemed content to just pace.

Leah and Jacob sat on either side of the doorway. Jacob had the rifle propped up next to him, Leah was trying to flip through an old magazine but she simply could not focus on it. Dawn was coming, she couldn't wait for this night to be over.

"We might need to have Emily look at that hand." Jacob whispered.

The lycanthrope growled a bit, causing both of them to jump but simply continued on its trek to the other end of The Pen.

"I think he heard you." Leah snapped as she rolled her eyes.

It grunted, snorted and then sneezed.

Jacob reached up and clutched the rifle, then set it across his lap.

"How long do you think we'll be doing this for?" Leah asked a few tense seconds later.

"Doing what?" Jacob asked.

"Sitting here, playing nanny?" She asked.

"Don't know." Jacob answered with a shrug. "I think dad said werewolves live longer than humans but I don't think he really knows. Maybe for another hundred years, maybe he'll live forever like the vamps. Who can say?"

Leah shuddered.

"Forever. That's… to long." Leah whispered. She tried to imagine going on for an eternity and it made her a little dizzy.

"Yeah." Jacob shrugged, she could tell in his voice that he didn't really consider it.

"I don't think I could go on forever…even with someone else who could go on forever." Leah shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"Bella thinks she can…with that God Damn leech." Jacob muttered angrily. Leah rolled her eyes, with Jake it always came back to Bella.

The werewolf paused for a moment, its ears twitched. Then it continued to pace, but slower, more deliberate than before.

"I think I'd rather die of old age after a good, long life than live to see everything in existence go up in smoke." Leah said quietly. "That'd just…_suck_."

Jacob stretched out his legs, even Shape Shifter muscles could get cramped up.

"I guess that's just something else that makes us better than the vampires." Jacob snapped, bitterness crept into his voice.

Leah tossed her magazine aside and looked up at the werewolf, it licked at its thick teeth with an agile pink tongue.

"We can live as long as we need to, so that we can do what we must. But when we choose, we can grow old and die just like regular people. Just like other human beings." The sound of hollow triumph in Jacob's voice was unmistakable. Leah couldn't help but agree, she would like nothing more than to grow old and gray with the man she loved. Leah was firmly in the 'life needs death to have meaning' camp. Besides, even immortals would die when the rest of existence did. Living to see the end of all things didn't sound appealing to her, even if she got to do it with her one true love. Assuming she still had one true love. The whole sappy soul mates thing started to sound more and more like bullshit to her every day.

Eternal life might sound good on paper, but anyone with two brain cells to rub together could definitely see the downsides.

Leah and her brothers had a chance to give up that immortality when they so choose. To live and die on their own terms and in their own way. Vampires could only be ended with horrible violence and dismemberment. Also fire. Lots and lots of fire. From the dust did mortal men rise and to the dust they must in the end return. She could stave off that end for a long time, perhaps forever but she knew she didn't really want to. In the end she to would die one day but for vampires -and perhaps werewolves as well- the end could only come at the hands of an enemy. No peaceful, dignified death surrounded by friends and family, knowing that the legacy you left behind would go on after your bones are powder in a box. Fire or silver. Brutal violence was the only way to end their journeys through life.

For all their power, she didn't envy them in the least.

"Forever'snot really me thing." she finally said. "Immortality's kind of for dopes."

The werewolf stared down at her. Monstrous face unreadable but those eyes, fearsome and alien as they were betrayed a very human emotion. An equally alien, predatory mind churned behind those eyes. Its inner workings roiling in animal ways, tempered with human intelligence, the bestial heart pounded against massive, curving ribs. The broad, furred shoulders sagged a bit, as though in defeat.

It sat down on the floor, and glowered out past the bars. Eyes of filthy yellow ice cutting through the darkness of its form like blades, lighting up the face carved from obsidian and the cavernous sunken in eye sockets. The werewolf watched the female from its peripheral vision, something it barely understood bubbling in its skull.

If it could be it would be free.

It would kill if it hungered.

And it would mate, if it lusted.

And more than anything else the beast _lusted_.

* * *

The Thing that had once been a man watched the Black residence from the safety of the skies, flapping its stolen wings as it circled. The Child of the Moon the foolish half breeds had locked up as a pet had sensed its presence, even though it had been careful about masking its scent. Interesting, but not entirely unsurprising. It clacked its short, curving beak, large eyes scanning the dwelling below. The bird form it had taken was not suited for auditory surveillance, the Spirit Owl was a creature of the visual hunt but had the monstrosity kept on prowling about in the form of the coyote he would have been surely discovered by the pathetic creatures. Its hawk form was of little use in the dark, even in the full moon. Locked in their single animal forms, he almost pitied these shifters below. Such limited potential. Such incomplete lives. As for him? Any chance to expand its power set as well as prove itself superior to lesser Shape Shifters was to be taken with utmost enthusiasm.

The pity for the pathetic dogs would not stay its twisted hand, soon it would kill them all and take their pelts and their power. Then perhaps it would have the Alpha's bitch, and make her its own for a while until it grew bored with her. The werewolf he would leave for The Windigo when it once again took a human host, apparently the creature had proven to be quite a formidable foe, even without the full moon and the Windigo was _not _pleased with the defiance. The vampires of course, as well the human bitch were for Victoria to avenge her mate.

Flapping its huge wings, the Navajo Skinwalker swooped low and sped off, heading for Seattle.

* * *

Wolfman-style werewolf? Yes please. Anyway, this chapter is short. Next one will probably be longer.

As you can see, there's going to be a lot of different critters in this story. Including a Ghostly Troll, a witch and a giant centipede snooping around the Swan residence. Said centipede is going to have a throw down with Charlie.


	9. Deer Poop and Body Odor

Writing this chapter was like trying to pass kidney stones. I don't know if it's any longer than the last one. It feels longer to me…it sure as hell felt longer while I was writing it.

Anyway, we're nearing the half way point of the first story arc. The three arcs are tentatively titled: Monarchy, Patricide, and Dynasty. As the story is plotted out now Dynasty takes place years after Patricide, but there's no need to worry about that now. Down this road there are character deaths, giant insects, vicious fight scenes, fight scenes involving vicious giant insects and of course, Connor mocking Edward for sparkling. And…perhaps…that romance I've been waving in front of your noses for a while? Lol, I are a tease.

* * *

As dawn crept across the sky, brightening the atmosphere from moonlit silver to the amber of dawn the werewolf's hair began to turn a yellowish white. Then it started to fall out in great clumps. The werewolf reached up with one furry paw/hand and scratched at its shoulder. Fur fell to the floor in a great big pile like pine needles falling off a dying Christmas tree. Beneath that fur, the flesh was red and raw, but _human_. If the werewolf had any protests to the rising sun, it did not voice them tonight. Minutes later, it fell over onto its side and fell unconscious. Jacob yawned, stretched and then stood. He set the gun aside and then trudged up the stairs. Leah grabbed Connor's robe and a soft but dirty towel off the hook as the werewolf's body began to steam.

Werewolves didn't transform back into their human forms the way they did. No, rather than imploding in on themselves the werewolf form seemed to boil away like stream. It was actually quite interesting to watch.

The reddened pink body of the werewolf began to smoke as though it was burning up. Beads of sweat appeared on the raw skin. Blood leaked from the werewolf's eyes, nose and mouth as the werewolf made tiny whimpering sounds. The large powerful legs kicked as they reformed themselves into a human configuration with a series of soft, wet cracks. The creature's body seemed to deflate as more and more steam began to billow and rise from the collapsing werewolf. Finally, the huge gusts of steam became so large and intense that Leah could only see a shrinking silhouette amid a great cloud of gray smoke.

A few moments later Quil and Paul came down into the basement. Paul had the keys, Quil had a hose. Emily was with them, carrying medical paraphernalia she had filched from the hospital she worked at. Emily was also the unofficial pack medic, taking care of any small scrapes and cuts they received in scuffles of tumbles. Their natural toughness and healing abilities made her a bit redundant but Sam liked that Emily had an interest in Pack welfare and kept her on call, even though she wasn't really needed.

Leah moved closer to Quil as he hooked up the hose.

"What the hell is this?" She motioned back to her cousin. She made an effort to sound discrete, but couldn't imagine being blamed for it if she failed…actually she could but then she just didn't really care. Quil looked at her, shrugged helplessly and sighed.

"Hi Leah!" Emily piped at her. She pretended she couldn't hear the greeting.

Then Connor began to twitch and shudder. His entire body convulsed and his maw opened wide, a series of horrific gagging noise escaping his open mouth as he began to violently shake. His skin had become corpse gray, his veins bulging and throbbing beneath his skin as he thrashed like a worm on a hook. Every fiber of every muscle in his body ached and burned. His cartilage felt as though it had been stretched like taffy. He mewled piteously in between dry heaves as his back arched and his jaw opened impossibly wide, revealing monstrous dire wolf teeth crammed into a human mouth. Emily blanched when she noticed the werewolf.

"Nasty, huh?" Paul asked lazily as he fumbled with the keys and eventually opened the first lock on the door.

"Watch it there, Paul. It looks like he's about to urk." Quil warned as he prepared the hose to rinse out the cage.

"He didn't eat that much last night." Leah started to say but the last part of her sentence was cut off when Connor's throat expanded hideously as yellow liquid leaked from the corner of his mouth. He reared up and with a hideous cough vomited up a half digested hoof before flopping back down and lying still.

"Oh. My…" Emily mumbled, hands shaking as they went up to cover her mouth.

"Jeez. He didn't even eat half the deer." Quil guessed as he stared at the exploded deer carcass. "Think he's sick?"

"You _feed _it?" Emily squeaked.

"_Him_, Emily." Leah snarled defensively. "Not it_."_

Emily frowned and then looked down sheepishly. Paul undid the second lock.

"Yeah, we have to feed him something or else he'll be out like a light for like, a week. Transforming takes up a lot of energy that he needs to replace quickly and since we can't exactly let him go out hunting on his own..." Quil explained with a shrug.

"We've been mostly tossing him bits of road kill and parts of our kills." Paul swung the door open lazily and stomped inside; making a face as he kicked aside smashed coils of intestines with his heavy duty rain boots. They squished in the muck and feces. "Seth sometimes brings him ground chuck that's past it's sell by date from the restaurant he works at. Leah's been shirking her patrol duties and bringing him fresh meat lately, though." Paul added.

Leah shot him a dirty look and insinuated that he copulated with his mother, but he just smirked at her. She could feel Emily's gaze at the back of her head, but choose to ignore it.

"Be careful, Paul. Looks like he's still got his claws out." Quil observed. Paul craned his neck to see Connor's large hands, from each fingertip extended a two-inch long blackened claw, each one as sharp as a hunting knife.

"Shit." He mumbled as he circled the werewolf. Connor had been still since his violent ejection of the offending hoof and was now breathing shallowly. Paul nudged him softly with his toe, causing Connor to whimper weakly, but otherwise he didn't move.

"Oh God Damn it Paul, he's not radioactive!" Leah shouted at him.

Shrugging, he reached down and grabbed the werewolf's forearm. Connor's eyes opened and he howled in rage and surprise, flailing furiously at Paul. The Shape Shifter was caught in the gut with a savage blow that sent him flying out of the cage. Emily screamed shrilly, leaping back as Paul landed with a dull thump.

"Ha!" Quil barked.

"God damn it!" Paul shouted from the ground, otherwise he didn't move.

"Dumbass." Leah muttered. She turned and shoved the robe into Emily's hands. "Could you hold this?" She didn't wait for an answer. She deftly avoided the blood and waste covering the floor with graceful steps and then knelt by Connor's side. He had rolled onto his back but he was curled up into a fetal position as well. Legs folded up against his chest and arms wrapped around his knees. His eyes were half-open but there was no focus in them, he was disorientated, totally unaware.

Leah forced his legs down and then draped the towel over his privates to protect anything left of Connor's dignity. Maybe it was the fact that, as a Shape Shifter nudity had quickly become part of her life but she personally found Connor's squeamishness about other people seeing him naked to be silly taboo, but it was important enough to Connor that she respected his wishes. He would be covered in the presence of others. Especially when it came to outsiders.

As if Emily would ever want to see Connor naked anyway, Leah thought with a snort.

Leah was stronger than any normal person was even in human form, but Connor was damn big. Heavy too, his muscles and bones were very dense, heavier than normal human bones and tissues. Still, she managed to pick him up and carry him out of the cage without to much trouble.

"Aw, Leah!" Quil called. "That's so romantic!"

"Shut up and clean out The Pen before I throw him at you." She snarled before setting him down in front of Emily, who turned green. Connor was covered in a fine layer of greasy sweat; though his fur was gone, the oils that his pelt produced were left behind on his skin.

"Um…m-maybe we should do this upstairs…" Emily said meekly.

"Can't, bright lights make him freak out this soon after a Phase." Paul said with a snort.

"Oh…" Emily mumbled. "Are there bright lights-"

"Yes, Emily. The sun counts as a _very _bright light." Leah snorted.

Emily pursed her lips and set about her task. She examined the damaged hand and grimaced at the sight of the gaping wound. The top layer of skin had been seared away, revealing pulsing red gore beneath, but luckily enough it didn't show signs of infection or necrosis. She set about cleaning the wound and bandaging it. Connor occasionally twitched, but otherwise kept still.

"He'll have to keep the wound clean." Emily said quietly.

"Which, for the record, won't be that easy in this basement." Leah said flatly.

Connor shifted uneasily, startling Emily. His face twisted into a grimace and he tried to sit up, voice rising into a growl but Leah put her hand to his forehead and he settled back down, allowing Emily to finish her work quickly.

"Okay, back in The Pen." Paul snapped when Emily started to get up.

Leah looked inside, the floor was still damp and pieces of pulped meat were still everywhere.

"Come on Leah, Sam's orders." Quil said.

Connor's eyes fluttered open for a moment, but he shut them against the dim lights. Still, one hand began to crawl along on the floor, claws clacking against the floor until they brushed up against her thigh. The claw tips dragged across her denim jeans. The young werewolf growled again, but Leah paid him no heed.

"Sam needs to talk to you anyway!" Paul's voice rose into a shout. "Come on, Leah! Let's go!"

Leah got her hands underneath Connor again, lifting him up. It was no easy task, but she managed just fine. She was stronger than what they liked to believe. Paul dropped the mattress onto the floor and helped Leah get Connor down on it.

"He's no good you know." Paul spat angrily.

"Who?" Leah asked, though she didn't really care what Paul had to say.

"Him. This…this _thing_." He looked down at Connor, disgust creeping in his eyes and pouring out his mouth like agitated bees from a hive. "That thing he becomes, it's dangerous Leah. He shouldn't be around people. Billy should have just taken that rifle ten years ago and-"

Leah shoved him hard. He landed on his ass in a pile of watery deer shit.

"You shut your fucking mouth or I swear to God I'll shut it for you." She hissed.

"Grow up, Leah! I'm just looking out for you!" Paul roared.

Leah laughed in his face.

"Looking out for me? _You_?" She gave a derisive snort.

"I know what you think about him, Leah! But he'll only hurt you! His kind-"

Leah stopped listening after that. Like Paul knew anything about _his kind. _Like Paul was some kind of expert on _his kind_. What a joke.

He had some stupid idea in that empty head of his that Leah had feelings for Connor. Now _that _was a joke. Well…maybe she did feel for him. But it wasn't romantic. The idea of being wined and dined by Connor Tailor, of the two of them spending hour after hour gazing into each others eyes, of bouquets of flowers and jewelry and chocolate-and oh! Leah was supposed to help Connor taste test his new marshmallow coated brownies this Sunday, which would of course not happen now…fucking Sam.- and, and…

Ew, there was a mental image she had never wanted.

Connor _naked _and _**thrusting**_.

With her.

Dear God, it would be like fucking Jake.

Connor was attracted to her, but he was a horndog so of course he was. He flirted with her, but it was purely jokingly. Sometimes she flirted back, just because it was one way in which they enjoyed each other company. It was all in good fun, they both knew that.

She looked down at Connor

She _hoped _they both knew that.

They were…not quite friends but they definitely weren't ever going to be lovers and Leah Tailor? _Hell _no. Just no. One day she _might _let him lay his grubby little hands on her just to get back at Sam. Yeah, that's it. Because _fuck _Sam.

But the idea of her and Connor as an item? She didn't know from how deep inside his ass the Duke of Dumb had reached to pull that particular nugget of stupidity, but it was obvious he had to dig deep. If she ever did fall in love with Connor, then the entire Pack would know about it. And she would never hear the end of it. Thanks to The Pack mind link of course.

She wasn't in love with Connor, it wasn't possible.

Never.

"Yeah." she muttered as she stood to leave the room. "Never."

* * *

Gary Huston lay where he had been since the night before, shivering and cold and oh so hungry on a rock. They…the boy…had given him water but…not enough. No, not enough. In fact, he didn't feel the cold anymore. He felt lighter than air. He felt like something was lifting him up off the cold hard rock he was laying on. In fact, he felt sleepy. He caught sight of the wedding band around his dead finger and strength surged through his body. Alas, it was short lived. He used it shouting into the forest. So much as he could still shout.

"M…Maria!" He thought he was shouting, he was trying to but dear God he was so weak…so very weak. He tried to get up but his limbs wouldn't support him. His fingers were black with frostbite; he knew his toes probably were too. The woman with the red hair and the red eyes. She had taken his gloves, his boots. All of his camping gear. Had she even been real? She couldn't have been, the way she moved…no. No, she was real and…no. Please no.

She-she had taken Maria!

Memories came rushing back to him, pouring down on him with renewed clarity. Maria! She had Maria! How long ago had she taken his wife? And…and the boy. He had red eyes too, hadn't he? He remembered them moving…so fast. So fast. He had tried to hit the boy in the face…he looked down at his hand. It looked like a big, blackened balloon. The fingers were so swollen the dead skin cracked to reveal dead muscle beneath. He didn't dare move it. He was dying, that much he knew. The cold and the hunger were chipping away at him.

He had…he had tried to run for help after they had taken Maria and their survival gear, but she…she wouldn't let him leave! He couldn't escape her. Couldn't fight back! He had shot her in the head with his shotgun but she had just smiled and kept on coming. He had hit her in the face with a rock but it had done nothing! What was she? He couldn't outrun her, couldn't overpower her he couldn't even hurt her! What _was _she? Why was she doing this to them? Why was this happening? Why?

Oh God, what where those monsters doing to Maria?

He had to get up, had to! Had to find help…had to get Maria…

A cold hand on his shoulder. Gary looked up, it was the boy. Eyes red. Face impassive.

"Nonononononono." He whimpered, he tried to roll away but the hand, cold as ice, kept him still. Something wet and red stained his slug belly white face, bits of dark skin hung between his white teeth. The red eyes stared down at him, rings of blood in this frozen hell.

The thing behind the eyes hungered…

* * *

Quil snored away on the couch, a half eaten candy bar hung from his mouth. Leah walked past him and out into the glaring sun. Summer was almost over, but the sun still shone brightly and after all night in the basement her eyes still took a moment to adjust. She was surprised to see Jacob out on his front lawn in his wolf form. He was a handsome beast, his gossamer coat of reddish brown fur stirring in the gentle breeze. His legs were thicker and stronger than his brothers and his skull was not so narrow. Little physical features that distinguished them in ways more subtle than the color of their fur, a combination of familiarity and Leah's natural affinity for the wolf allowing her to notice little differences that a normal person wouldn't. He turned to her and woofed a greeting. Beside him stood Sam, staring up into the sky.

"You wanted to see me?" Leah asked, her voice harsh.

"Phase," Sam said quietly before turning to her. "Jacob will show you."

Leah rolled her eyes and then began to strip. Jacob looked away, pretending that something on his paw was more interesting than her. Connor wasn't the only one who still clung silly taboos. Maybe it was because The Pack regarded her as their sister (Their annoying, unlikable, bitter sister who they would rather have never been born.) and usually tried to avoid looking at her naked when they could avoid it. Because of this, many found their lingering attraction to her shameful. For those first few months, it had been awkward for her too, but she had sucked it up and soldiered on. Why some of the others couldn't do the same was beyond her.

She quickly banished these thoughts from her mind as she tossed her bra onto the pile with the rest of her clothes and phased. The physical pain was fleeting and didn't really bother her. It was that kind of sharp, snapping ache of popping your joints. Her flesh was protean, and only her bones hurt and in an instant that pain was gone and forgotten. The nausea that arrived, the discomfort had nothing to do with any kind of physical sensation. She looked down at her forepaws, the silvery white and gunmetal gray of her fur was more striking in hue than the duller coloration of true wolves just as it was with her brothers. She looked up and locked eyes with Jacob, immediately seeing herself through his eyes. Her jaws where thin and snappish, her ears longer. She actually liked the darker facial markings around her face that streaked back from her eyes and swept down from her forehead. As much disdain as she had for her current state she was pleased that she was good looking in any form but of course she had to admit that Connor's compliments to her figure didn't due much good for her ego.

"_Look." _he had once told her over pizza. _"I'm not into bestiality or anything…but I'd hit it."_

The two of them had then burst out laughing at that point, and she smiled at the memory. Then the smell hit her, and she stopped laughing. It was a cold smell that crawled up her nostrils and bit into her brain like a torrent of ants. She snorted and whined, wiping her snout against her paws as if to try to pull it out. It smelled like…like…

'_Can't describe it, can you?' _Jacob asked. _'Can't put it in words. Don't try.'_

She couldn't, she really couldn't. There were no words in the Quileute or English language to describe the unbearable stench that made vampire odor smell like flowers. She could only describe what it did to her, it made her hackles rise. Her bladder suddenly felt full and without realizing it she set her tail firmly between her legs. Something tingled in the back of her mind, and her eyes watered as though as had been chopping onions. Her teeth chattered and she growled as if to warn off…something. A cold hand gripped her guts in a tight fist.

It was a fear response.

She didn't even know what this horrible new scent was and she was instinctively afraid of it. In the same way a baby instinctively knew to fear a venomous spider crawling in his crib even if he was too young to know what a spider even was or understand the very concept of venom. Leah was afraid of whatever left behind that smell and that fear made her angry.

"It's all around the house…hell it's all around La Push. Embry and Paul scented it out last night while on patrol." Sam growled.

'_It's all around the house.' _Jacob said, suddenly she could feel a wave of emotion rolling off him-panic. _'Dear God, it was outside my _house_!'_

'_What is it?' _Leah asked. She was almost afraid to ask the question, she might not want to know the answer. She looked at him with her dark eyes, and even though she couldn't mentally communicate with her in his human state he read her gaze like a written message.

Sam closed his eyes and breathed deeply though his nostrils. He was trying to calm himself, trying to vent out the fear and confusion.

"Honestly," when he opened his eyes, fresh daggers of fear stabbed Leah's heart. Because he looked totally and completely lost. "We don't know." And he didn't know, and that was far more scary than anything Connor could become. Sam always knew what to do, or at least have an inkling. An opinion. He would weigh his options; adjust his thinking to new information but for him to not even have a clue as to what this was?

Sam was the center of the Pack. The hub of their wheel, if he was weak, they were weak and likewise if he was strong, they were strong. They all looked to him for guidance, even Leah though she hated to admit it. Somehow though, even though they knew nothing about this new creature-and they had all come to the same conclusion, this was something supernatural- they were more frightened of it than they were of any vampire or werewolf. It was an instinctive fear. As though they knew even on the cellular level, a spiritual one even, that this thing was walking death.

In spite of all that, Leah tried to shake it off, she lowered her head to the ground and started to follow the trail. She managed to loop half way around the house before she couldn't take it anymore. Abruptly her connection to Jacob was cut off as she pulled herself back into her human form. Flesh became protean, skeleton popped and folded in on itself, the sudden suction of misplaced air and…done. Quick, clean and relatively painless. Her senses collapsed back into her human range, though she possessed them to a level no normal human ever did and the smell diminished but it didn't leave her completely. She was worried it never would. She rushed back to the front yard and began to hurriedly put her clothes on; Jacob was on the other side of the house, dressing himself.

"Then this… it was out here last night?"

Sam nodded.

"Then Connor must have smelled it! " Jacob shouted as he ran up towards them. "That's what made him freak out!"

Leah considered this for a moment, and although she couldn't quite understand why a flutter of joy raced through her belly.

"Yes, that is… possible." Sam said with a nod, though Leah saw there was some hesitation in his admission. She furrowed her brow, becoming frustrated.

"So we know his behavior only becomes erratic when he senses a threat nearby." Leah supposed, the statement was a thinly concealed probe into Sam's defenses and the Alpha honestly looked thoughtful for a moment.

"We don't know anything yet." Sam insisted.

"Bullshit!" Leah shouted. "Sam, come on. Let Connor out, he isn't going to hurt anyone."

"You don't know that." Sam stated flatly.

"Yes I do!"

"How?"

"Because I know Connor and he wouldn't hurt anybody unless they tried to hurt him first! He's seriously The King Pussy!" Leah insisted.

"It's true." Jacob stepped in. "Back when we were little he used to cry and run to his mom when I punched him in the face." Had the three of them been listening for it, they would have heard a muffled "Oh, fuck you guys! Seriously!" coming from the basement.

"I know Connor wouldn't hurt a soul. It's not him I don't trust." Sam admitted with a sigh. "But I can't, _can't _take the chance of something like the beach happening again. What if it happened in a public place? Like the mall he works at…or in Emily's home?"

He shrugged helplessly.

"I'm not willing to take the risk. I'm sorry, Leah."

Leah wanted to punch right in his Zen, stoic little mouth. She hated herself for still loving Sam almost as much as she hated herself for giving her father a heart attack. Leaving Connor locked up in his own personal Hell until some vague conditions were met? Until they discovered some answer that Sam didn't seem to be looking for and likely didn't care about? The beast was locked up and as far as Sam was concerned that meant case closed. Connor could rot in Jacob's basement until Judgment Day for all Sam cared as long as he wasn't a threat to anyone. _That _was all on Sam, and she fully intended to stick it to him and the rest of The Pack for as long as she could.

She didn't know how long she stood there, seething. Stewing in her own sour anger, but it had to be a while because she was snapped out of it she heard Sam use his Alpha Timbre to shut Jacob up. Even though the command was directed at her, it still sent a shiver down her spine. Through the dormant mental link she felt Jacob's will be overridden by Sam's magic.

It was then that Paul and Embry came running up to Sam, both flushed. Sweat running down their faces, panting. They must have run a long way at top speed to work themselves up that way. Embry started talking first, and as he went on, Leah's eyes widened.

Something terrible had happened.

* * *

Leah heavily tromped down the stairs, thinking about Connor. The news Embry and Paul had brought was tragic and disturbing but Sam's steadfast refusal to listen to her still echoed in her mind. The way his facade of Zen calm cracked when it came to the werewolf. She had seen it happen before, the night they were introduced to Connor's werewolf form and again after the incident on the beach. No one could get under Sam's skin quite like Connor Tailor.

Honestly, it was one of his more endearing qualities.

"I knew you couldn't stay away for very long. Most women can't." Connor rattled from the mattress he was laying on inside the cage. His voice sounded like gravel being shot out of a rubber hose.

"Seth should be on guard duty." Leah ignored his playful flirting. He was laying on his side, back to her.

"I sent him outside to get some air. My stench was making him queasy."

"You can't do that." Leah scolded him as she sat down in the rocking chair.

"Apparently I can. Your brother is the only one smart enough to listen to me." Connor yawned.

A silence fell over the room while Leah considered what to say next.

"You have a flat old-man ass." Leah finally decided.

"That's cause I'm a guy, I've scratched it all off. Most men do by the time they're in their twenties." Connor said with a derisive snort.

"No, I've seen guys your age with very nice asses." Leah shot back.

"Easy for you to say. Your ass is awesome." Connor said.

"Not your best pick up line." Leah huffed. "But yes, my ass is awesome."

"Not my worst pick up line either." Connor sat up and turned to her. "I got the distinct feeling I did something last night that made Sam even more eager to put a silver bullet in my frontal lobe. Aside from the whole bitch fit that ended with Paul being splattered with deer blood. What happened?"

"Which was funny in retrospect." Leah evaded the question. She picked up a book and began to flip through it, not really reading it.

"_Leah." _

"Nothing!" Leah snapped, standing up. She tossed the book onto the table. "Everyone's making a mountain out of a mole hill." she began to pace up and down the length of the room. "They're acting like you're going to snap and go postal on everyone at any given moment."

"No, Leah. Sam's right." Connor sighed and stood up, approaching the bars. "It's safer if I'm kept in here. Safer for everyone. Me…_you_. Everyone."

Leah stopped and looked at Connor, not knowing what to think or feel. All the same things that bound them together seemed to separate them as well and that separation was a barrier more powerful than the one that held back the beast.

It had been so much easier with Sam.

He was older than Connor, and in some ways far smarter and wiser. Kinder as well, in his own way. Gentler. Connor was all rough edges and coarse surfaces. Sam had had a nice body even before he phased, sculpted. Connor wasn't puny himself, but his muscles were more compact and if not for his already massive frame he would not have looked so imposing. His body was designed for pure efficiency; his muscles were incredibly dense, layered like armored plates. His tendons were like the steel cables of a suspension bridge; his skin was tough and leathery and geared towards resistance to slashing weaponry.

True werewolves weren't pretty, but then again they didn't need to be. They were apex predators; there was no pretense about it. Connor was what he was, and it was easy for Leah to see that he was the pinnacle of predatory evolution even with his human form masking it. As a human being, Connor didn't have much going in the looks department. As a predator, he was a work of art. Lethal claws, crushing bite, powerful muscles and razor sharp intelligence unclouded by petty human concepts of remorse or morality. Oh yes it was beautiful, in the same sense that a tarantula or a great white shark was beautiful.

Yet at the end of the day, that's what he was. A predatory animal. Sam was, for all his faults, a human being.

Connor harbored within himself a beast so terrifying even vampires feared and hated it. Hated it because when the moon became full the world they felt they dominated was no longer their own, the night was no longer theirs to rule. Because they to, were hunted down. It was a curse so potent that it had left its mark even on his human state. He was a monster. Sam may have been an asshole, but he was also a warrior. A protector. A leader.

Connor just didn't measure up to Sam. He never would. He was the hideous monster; Sam was the knight in shining armor. Sam got the girl and the glory, Connor got the sword in his heart and his head on the pike. That was the way of things, the way things should be. No shades of gray, just good and evil, winner take all. Despite all the uncertainty they had faced, she and Sam had been straight lines and smooth surfaces. They had found their perfection in each other, everything else was just waves breaking against the island they had built together.

So why then was it Connor who she felt so close to? Why then, was it Connor who comforted her and she who comforted him? When The Pack, the men who were supposed to be her brothers, beings so in tune with one another that they heard each others thoughts seemed less connected to her than this Thing That Should Not Be? Why was it, that when their island crumbled and Sam left Leah to drown, it had to be Connor who tried to pull Leah out of the water? Not her mother or Seth or Emily. _Connor_.

Leah knelt by Connor's cage and stuck her fingers through the bars. Connor crouched before her, and his bandaged hand clasped over her own. Occasionally when his naked skin brushed against metal a dull, burning ache would spread throughout his whole arm but he ignored it. Shadows hung under Connor's eyes, and his face was streaked with blood and dirt and his brow seemed twisted and curved into the beginning of lupine features. His eye sockets had become oddly angular in shape, giving his face the appearance of a perpetual scowl. His wild gray mane of hair was dirty and matted and Leah spied long, white hairs sprouting from his forehead and chin. His bare torso was darkened by body hair. His eyes were the worst though. The whites were a inflamed red, the irises a dull, sickly yellow. They were tired eyes, the eyes of an old man or a terminal cancer patient. The eyes of someone resigned to his fate. Connor had stopped fighting before his fight had even begun.

It hurt her, to see him like this. Like an animal locked up in a cage. All of his strength and all of his vitality smothered behind in a box. The werewolf belonged there, but the person didn't.

Locking Connor up may have been the smart thing to do, but it wasn't the right thing to do.

"Something was out there last night." Leah said quietly.

"Windigo?"

She said nothing.

"Vampire?"

"We don't know what it was. You smelled it and went nuts. That's _all_." It was only a theory, but it did make sense.

"That's it?" Connor asked, he didn't sound convinced. Leah nodded.

He tried; he really did try to believe her. He wanted to, yet he couldn't help feel that there was more to it than that. He dropped the subject anyway.

"So, what's the latest gossip from the real world?" He asked, trying to make it sound like he cared.

"There was a fire down at Jared's house." Leah said, her eyes becoming distant.

"Jared." Connor echoed the name. He knew a Jared from school, but he wasn't all that familiar with him. Was he a descendent of Taha Aki? Billy had urged Sam to watch certain members of the tribe who might have wolf blood in their veins, Connor was sure he had heard Jared's name get mentioned.

"His mom and his little sister died in it." then, after a pause. "They think his dad started it…the two of them were found tied up in the basement."

"_Jesus." _Connor sputtered. When was the last time he heard of a murder taking place in La Push or Forks? Not since…not since the werewolf that…not in a long time. Certainly, he hadn't heard of any human on human violence. There had been rumors a girl had been date raped by her boyfriend a few years back, but they had just been that. Rumors. There had been no investigations and no one had come forward, no evidence had been found of anything. There had of course been the vampire incursion in Forks the year before but two of them were dead.

'_And one of them is gunning for me.' _Connor thought bitterly, but he quickly banished the thought.

A man tying up his wife and little girl in the basement and then leaving them to burn to death? Yeah, that kind of thing just didn't happen around there.

"They haven't found his father yet. He slipped away in the confusion, everyone's looking for him." Leah shifted uncomfortably. "Jacob and Paul are looking for him too."

"One middle age guy isn't much of a match for two wolves, especially if he doesn't know what he's up against." Connor tried to sound reassuring.

"I'm not worried about him hurting them…physically anyway. But if he did do it…what are they going to see if they find him? Jacob's a kid, destroying monsters is one thing, Connor. Vampires don't even bleed. They aren't alive. People _do _bleed. What if they have to take him out? What if they find him covered in his family's blood? What if they find him hanging from a tree branch by a rope around his neck?" Leah asked.

It was certainly a valid concern. Vampires were totally inhuman creatures, monstrosities, but one could always blame their crimes on their own nature, disgusting though they may be. Yet it was human violence, man turning against man, which could often be the more horrific. Psychologically, the wolves were still human. Empathy could be just as much a curse as a blessing, and if Jared's dad really had gone off the deep end there was no telling what they might see. What he might do before he was found, whom he might hurt…

That is to say, if he was guilty at all. Disappearing like that was strange, and raised a whole lot of questions but they were living in strange times. He clumsily articulated the opinion that perhaps everyone should keep a more open mind and not jump to so many hasty conclusions. It was a flimsy argument, but Leah seemed to take solace in the simple fact that Connor was just trying to comfort her. In fact, she barely even listened to what he was saying. She smiled at him. Not a bitter smile or a condescending one. Not the knowing grin that usually passed between them. It was a genuine smile, the kind she used to smile before her life went to hell.

It was nice to have at least one person who gave a damn.

Even if he did smell like deer poop and body odor.

* * *

Hey guys, remember how Connor used to work in a mall as a security guard? Remember how cooking was pretty much his only non-supernatural related trait? Remember how he was Bella's brother?…Cause I sure as hell don't. Lol. I might insert a few chapters in between the mall chapter and the beginning of the beach sequence just to add some more character interaction as well as crank up the weirdness factor. Something else is brewing in Forks, and Victoria isn't responsible for it. I've kind of tried to lay down some ground work for it, this chapter holds a big chunk of foreshadowing with Jared's dad going Jack Nicholson on everyone. The whole scheme involves Ley Lines and a vampire slaying hammer. Fun times.

I also want to clarify Sam's position, he honestly isn't keeping Connor locked up out of malice. He actually does have a fair point, they really don't know what they're dealing with and it _would _be safer to keep Connor sequestered away until they get a handle on the problem. Next chapter will involve Connor starting to crack from being locked up in The Pen for so long and maybe some interaction between Leah and Elaine. Momma Tailor is not a happy woman right now. Maybe you'll get some Skinwalker/Victoria interaction. I was going to add some Bella/Edward action this chapter but I frankly still have no idea how to write Edward's reaction to Bella having a illegitimate half brother. I'm thinking he makes it all about poor Bella and they just sit there preening for the rest of the scene, but I'm aaallllll ears. :P

I'd also like to take a moment to shout out to all my loyal reviewers. Especially those who have provided detailed reviews and left constructive criticism. I tend not to reply to individual reviews, but that's more a matter of me being a person of few words. And by that I mean lazy as all hell. And by that I mean I forget to add them into the AN. I'm a doofus. Anywho, I _do _read every one of your reviews, and I'm always glad when someone is enjoying the story and elated when they have suggestions on how to make it better.


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